Lawyers ask high court to free Uighurs

WASHINGTON, June 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court should order the government to free 17 Chinese Muslims from detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, their lawyers said Friday.

The lawyers filed a petition asking the high court to enforce a ruling made eight months ago by U.S. District Judge Richard Urbina in Washington, The Miami Herald reported.

The men, all Uighurs from western China, have been held at Guantanamo for almost eight years. Five were released to Albania, but the U.S. government has been unable to find other countries willing to take them, will not return them to China for fear they might be tortured, and will not accept them in the United States.

''The historic role of the Judicial Branch is to demand the release of prisoners precisely when the political branches find release inconvenient,'' the lawyers said.

The Uighurs are held separately from other detainees in a unit known as Camp Iguana. Several staged a protest Monday for the benefit of reporters touring the camp, holding up homemade posters.