From Guantanamo to paradise

Leaving Guantanamo for paradise

Bermuda, with its pastel-coloured homes overlooking the turquoise waters of the Atlantic Ocean, is now home to four Chinese Uighurs who were released from Guantanamo Bay after seven years inside.

The men are a long way from home, but they say they had heard of Bermuda, an UK overseas territory off America's eastern seaboard, before they got there.

"Actually I did know something about Bermuda, about the Bermuda Triangle. When I first heard we were coming here I thought, that's that mysterious place," said Khalil Mamut.

When I met Khalil Mamut, 31, Abdullah Abdulqadir, 30, Salahidin Abdulahat, 32, and Ablikim Turahan, 38, in their new home, they were all smiling, laughing and joking with one another.

As they ordered Bermudan fruit punch and rock fish, it became clear that they were relishing their new-found freedom.

"I saw someone fishing and I walked down, and said 'I want to do that can I have go?' He said OK, and in one minute I caught two small fish.

"The fish reminded me of Guantanamo - I had mercy on them and let them go," said Khalil Mamut.

This is exactly how these men used to see themselves, as small fish caught in a huge net as the US military rounded up terror suspects in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan after 9/11.

Mr Mamut says the four men had initially fled their homes in China because they wanted to escape oppression and lead free lives.

Recent ethnic violence in Xinjiang province has focused attention on the Muslim minority and their efforts to establish a Uighur homeland, which they call Turkestan...

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There is also a BBC World Service audio documentary called .

I guess these people's jihad really paid off? They wanted freedom, they got freedom.

"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.

But remeber some of them are technically "free" but have no where to go. No country seems to accept them.

“Before death takes away what you are given, give away whatever there is to give.”

Mawlana Jalal ud Din Rumi