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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Guantanamo Bay release overturned | Guantanamo Bay release overturned |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| A US federal appeals court has rejected the release of 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees onto US soil, reports say. | A US federal appeals court has rejected the release of 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees onto US soil, reports say. |
| A US judge ruled last year that the 17 Uighurs - Chinese Muslims - were no longer enemy combatants and should be released into the United States. | A US judge ruled last year that the 17 Uighurs - Chinese Muslims - were no longer enemy combatants and should be released into the United States. |
| China has requested their return, but the US will not send them home for fear they will be persecuted. | China has requested their return, but the US will not send them home for fear they will be persecuted. |
| No other country has agreed to take the men, who have been detained since they were picked up in Afghanistan in 2001. | No other country has agreed to take the men, who have been detained since they were picked up in Afghanistan in 2001. |
| The appeals court said that only the executive branch, not the judiciary, could make decisions on immigration, Associated Press news agency said. | |
| Albania has taken in five other Uighur men who were held at Guantanamo Bay, but earlier in February Beijing urged other countries not to accept the men. | |
| China wants to put the men on trial for alleged separatist activities and said any country that takes them in would be harbouring terrorists. | |
| The ruling puts a further obstacle in the way of President Barack Obama's bid to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by early next year. | |
| There are approximately 250 detainees still at the prison and the 17 Uighurs had been expected to be some of the first released under President Obama. | |
| The decision by District Judge Ricardo Urbina last October that the 17 men should be released into the US angered the White House of then-President George Bush. | |
| The Bush administration said their release into the US would have posed a security risk and set a precedent for the release of other detainees onto American soil. |