Free at least

It had to happen -- perhaps the strange national nightmare is ending. Slowly but certainly, and without the help of Congress, the U.S. courts are repairing years of the Bush administration's most grievous abuses of power. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Washington ordered the immediate release of 17 Chinese Muslims who have been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison for seven years despite being cleared of terrorism suspicions. Judge Ricardo Urbina said the ethnic Uighurs, who live in an autonomous region in western China, had to be resettled in the United States because the U.S. government said it was unable to find another country to accept them, according to the Reuters international news service. The Uighurs were arrested in Pakistan after fleeing the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. At the time, U.S. intelligence officials suspected them of being affiliated with the East Turkmenistan Islamist Movement, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. The Uighurs denied any such terrorist connections, and the United States cleared them in 2004. But they remained in custody at Guantanamo Bay. Urbina ordered the detainees to appear in his courtroom Friday morning for a hearing on how the U.S. government would resettle them. "There is a pressing need for them to be released," Urbina said in court, according to Reuters. The government announced Tuesday afternoon that it would seek an emergency stay to stop the judge's order.