Members of a Christian campaign group calling for the closure of Guantánamo Bay met with Bermuda's Uighurs at the weekend.

Witness Against Torture's Luke Hansen, John Bambrick and Jeremy Kirk came to the Island to visit Khalil Mamut, Ablikim Turahun, Salahidin Abdulahad and Abdulla Abdulqadir, who spent seven years in the notorious US detention camp.

The three American activists shared a meal with the former prisoners at their home and swam with them in the sea, as well as swapping stories about family and religious faith.

Mr. Hansen, 28, told The Royal Gazette: "They were very welcoming to us. We had a lot of fun together. We went to the beach, we played a little football. We laughed a lot."

He said his organisation did a lot of advocacy for the Uighurs at Guantánamo and wanted to build a relationship with them now they had been released.

"We saw this as part of reconciliation because the United States had detained them unlawfully. We thought it was important, as US citizens, to kind of be in a relationship with them and to express our sorrow for basically what happened at Guantánamo."

He said the Uighurs told the group they were very happy in Bermuda and grateful to have been given refuge but distressed that five of their countrymen remained at Gitmo.

Mr. Hansen's group wants those prisoners to be given shelter in the States, arguing it is America's moral duty to take them in after wrongfully detaining them.

The activists spent the weekend finding out more about the Uighurs who remain in the camp in Cuba and getting to know the four men who have lived and worked here for more than a year.

"They talked about how it's difficult to be prisoners anywhere," said Mr. Hansen, who is training to become a Catholic priest.

"It's difficult to be separated from their families. So many times at the weekend they talked about their families, how much they loved their parents and miss them.

"They talked a little bit about the difficulty in the camps and how detainees would be treated depending on where they were. It seems they kind of had a mixed experience based on what camp they were in.

"Our organisation has never presumed that the Uighurs were tortured in Guantánamo in interrogations."

He said he was inspired by the men's faith in God and their capacity to forgive. "They don't hold animosity or hatred towards the US for what happened at Guantánamo. They expressed several times that they really do want to move on."

Witness Against Torture held a daily vigil at the White House for the first 100 days of the Obama administration, encouraging the new President to uphold his commitment to shut down Guantánamo.