Hassan Anvar

Anwar Hassan is an Uyghur refugee who was wrongly imprisoned for more than seven years in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps.

Hassan is one of the 22 Uighurs held in Guantanamo for many years despite it becoming clear early on that they were innocent.

Combatant Status Review Tribunals
Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.

Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Hassan is one of the captives known to have had multiple reviews convened, after his initial review determined he was not an enemy combatant.

According to the study entitled, No-hearing hearings, Hassan Anvar did not choose to attend his Tribunal.

The study identified Hassan as one of the captive whose first Tribunal had determined that they should not had been classified as an "enemy combatant" in the first place, only to have subsequent Tribunals convened, which reversed the earlier determination.

Current status
On February 4, 2009 the Globe and Mail reported that Hassan Anvar's refugee claim, and the refugee claims of two of his compatriots were close to completion. The article quoted Mehmet Tohti, a Uyghur human rights activist who stated that he had met with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. According to the Globe Tohti claimed there had been a positive consensus to admit Anvar, and two men whose lawyers have not authorized their names to be released.

The Don Valley Refugee Resettlement Organization has worked to sponsor Anvar's refugee claim.

Temporary Asylum in Palau
In June 2009 the government of Palau announced that they would offer temporary asylum to some of the Uyghurs. The government of Palau sent a delegation Guantanamo, and interviewed some of the remaining Uyghurs. Some of the Uyghurs declined to be interviewed by the Palauns. In the end the government of Palau offered asylum to twelve of the remaining thirteen Uyghurs. Palau declined to offer asylum to one of the Uyghurs who suffered from a mental disorder, brought on by detention, that was too profound to be treated in Palau.

On October 31, 2009 "Anwar Hassan", Ahmad Tourson, Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman, Edham Mamet, Dawut Abdurehim and Adel Noori were released and transferred to Palau.