Albania: Getting Out of Gitmo

Watch video:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/watch/player.html?pkg=albania801&seg=1&mod=0

Life in the Heart of China

By Brent E. Huffman

INTRODUCTION: Why China, And Why Me!

Growing up in rural Ohio surrounded by cornfields in the heart of Amish country, I never imagined going to China. But these days I always seem to find myself in unexpected places.

In 2004, I fell in love with Xiaoli Zhou, a talented television producer from Shanghai. We met at the journalism school in Berkeley, California, where we were both studying for our master’s in documentary filmmaking.

Xiaoli was my first real introduction to the mysteries of this tightly controlled country.

In late 2005, we met Wong How Man, a native of Hong Kong and president of the China Exploration and Research Society (CERS). He was looking for a filmmaking team crazy enough to spend six months or more traveling through China’s remotest corners to shoot and produce five documentaries for the Discovery Channel. The themes of these films would vary from endangered exotic animals to vanishing minority cultures. During those six months, we would be traveling the entire western perimeter of the country and back again. The scope of the project was daunting, but I knew it was a challenge I couldn’t pass up.

How Man would supply us with a vehicle, a driver and essential survival gear, including professional expedition tents and clothing to stay alive in high altitudes and freezing temperatures. He was also connected enough to get us into areas normally off limits to Westerners and Chinese alike.

We broke the lease on our comfortable apartment in Oakland, California, and sold most of our belongings. Our cars went back to the dealership and we put the remaining tidbits of our lives into storage. I packed film equipment and a supply of Thomas Mann novels and took a 15-hour flight to Shanghai.

It’s perhaps naïve, but I try to live my life in the vein of a favorite quote of mine by poet John Berryman: “We must walk in the direction of our fear.”

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May 21, 2006
Region: Border of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region

We are finally closing in on Xinjiang. We could have gotten here by air, but we are driving because of the huge amount of film equipment we are carrying.

Perhaps the notion of traveling along the Silk Road, made famous by 13th-century explorer Marco Polo, also swayed our decision. In reality, much has changed since then. Today, the 7000-mile-long trade route -- through China at least -- is a series of expensive highways.

Xinjiang is the Islamic region of China, and we’d read reports that many of China’s minority cultures had been suppressed into a meager and quiet existence.

Like the Tibetans, China’s Muslims fought hard for independence and attained it with the founding, in 1933, of East Turkistan in western China. But East Turkistan was squashed by Chairman Mao’s Red Army in the 1950s when the Communists took control of China .

“Be afraid -- these people steal and can be violent,” Han Chinese warn me about the Muslims. I hear this so often that I start to worry.

The Hui are one of China’s largest minority groups, totaling more than 10 million people. You can distinguish them by their small white caps, and the old men usually grow long white beards.

We pass through many small Hui farming villages heading west. Xiaoli would translate Chinese propaganda messages painted on the mud walls of many of their houses. One hand-painted sign reads, “Join together to fight against AIDS.” Another reads, “The government wants citizens to fight to prevent the spread of AIDS.”

We wonder if these messages will help in China’s fight against the AIDS epidemic or just confuse poor minority people who may not even know what AIDS is.

See whole article:

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/chinadiaries/index.html

China - Silenced

• Who Are the Uighurs? A Contested History
• Westward Ho: China's Next Frontier
• Separatists or Terrorists?
• U.S.-China Partnership in the "War on Terror"
• The Guantánamo Controversy
• Strike Hard: The Uighur Crackdown
• A Dissident View
• Other Sources for Uighur News
• Reporting in China


Source:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/china401/links.html

Long Cleared of Terrorism Charges, Uyghurs Languish in Gitmo Prison and Albanian Exile

Uyghur prisoners at Guantanamo have long been determined to be not guilty of terrorism. But seventeen of these ethnic Muslim Chinese are still imprisoned at Guantanamo after almost eight years. Five were forcibly resettled in Albania, isolated and away from their families. We speak with their lawyer, Sabin Willett, and PBS FRONTLINE reporter Alexandra Poolos, who has followed their story for a new report.

Watch Video:
http://i1.democracynow.org/2009/1/30/long_cleared_of_terrorism_charges_uighurs