Late 2001-2002: After initially being taken in by Pakistani villagers, the Uyghurs were then turned over to the U.S. military for bounties. By June 2002, they were all sent from detention centers in Afghanistan to the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.
Late 2003: The Pentagon quietly decided that seven of the Uyghurs detained were considered enemy combatants and 15 could be released, according to a Washington Post report in 2005. Five that were deemed eligible for release were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, picked up by bounty hunters in Pakistan for cash from the United States. The other ten were determined to be low-risk detainees with beef with China, not the United States.
Most of 2004: U.S. officials opted not to repatriate the Uyghurs to China and began to approach Muslim countries with Uyghur communities in an attempt to relocate the detainees.
September 2004 - March 2005: The Pentagon established panels at Guantanamo to decide whether the prisoners were being rightly held. Even though most of the Uyghers had been cleared for release, the boards cleared only six Uyghurs. In a second review, the boards found that only five could be freed.
August 25, 2006: The five Uyghur detainees deemed non combatants were moved to Camp Iguana, a compound within Guantanamo Bay which originally held three child detainees under the age of 16 who were eventually sent home. The five detainees filed writs of habeas corpus for unlawful detainment.
May 5. 2006: Just days before their writs of habeas corpus were due for review, the five detainees that applied for the writs were freed and sent to the Albanian National Center for Refugees in Tirana, Albania.
June 2008: The Bush Administration found that all the Uyghur detainees were no longer enemy combatants but would continue to hold them until they could find a country that would accept them.
October 1, 2008: The Justice Department ruled that none of the remaining Uyghur detainees were enemy combatants and that they should be released. Also in October, a U.S. Federal Court found that the Uyghurs should be released into communities in the United States.
January 22, 2009: U.S. President Barack Obama signs an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention facilities within one year.
Feburary 9, 2009: A U.S. Federal Appeals Court ruled that the U.S. Federal Court did not have the authority to allow the release of the Uyghurs into the United States and that only the President or Congress holds that power. In response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu said: "On the issue of the Chinese terrorist suspects detained in Guantanamo, we have repeatedly stated that we oppose any country receiving these people."
April 22, 2009: The U.S. Treasury Department designated Abdul Haq, the leader of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party, as a terrorist following a U.N. designation on April 15, 2009 that Abdul Haq should be subject to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo under the Security Council resolution 1822. A number of the detained Uyghurs in Guantanamo said that Haq ran the cap in Tora Bora.
April 24, 2009: Despite news reports that up to seven of the detained Uyghurs would be resettled in the United States, U.S. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tells journalists that no decision has been made.
April 30, 2009: Adil Hakim, one of the original Uygher detainees released to Albania, was granted aslyum in Sweden, after traveling there to speak at a human rights conference.
May 2009: Some U.S. lawmakers including Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have opposed the release of the Uyghurs in the United States. The Los Angeles Times and New York Daily News reports that Northern Virginia is a likely destination for many because of its Uyghur community which could help the former detainees adjust.
Present: Seventeen Uyghur men remain incarcerated at Guantanamo, despite the fact that they have been cleared for release.