WASHINGTON -- A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Tuesday to immediately release a small group of Chinese Muslims from Guantánamo Bay into the United States.

In a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said it would be wrong for the Bush administration to continue holding the detainees, known as Uighurs, since they are no longer considered enemy combatants.

The Uighurs have been in custody for almost seven years and have been cleared for release since 2004, but the government has not been able to find a country willing to take them in. Bush administration lawyers argued Tuesday that Urbina did not have the authority to order the Uighurs released into the United States.

Urbina called the detention unlawful, saying the Constitution prohibits indefinite imprisonment without charges.

The Uighurs have been at Guantánamo Bay naval prison since the U.S. military took custody of them in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001. Efforts by the Bush administration to find a home for the detainees has been complicated by fears in many countries of diplomatic reprisals by China.

Five of the Uighur detainees were released in 2006 to Albania, which offered refuge over protests by the Chinese government.

In Beijing Tuesday, before Urbina's ruling, the government demanded that all Uighurs held at Guantánamo be repatriated to China.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the Uighurs are suspected of being members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.

''China has urged the U.S. to repatriate these Chinese terrorist suspects to China on many occasions. We hope the U.S. will take our position seriously and repatriate these persons to China sooner rather than later,'' he said.

A spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Urbina's order.

Uighurs are from Xinjiang -- an isolated region that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations -- and say they have been repressed by the Chinese government. China has long said that insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang.

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