Bermuda’s pro-independence Prime Minister survived a no-confidence motion at the weekend despite protests against his decision to resettle four Guantánamo Bay inmates in Britain’s oldest colony.

The four Uighurs, freed after seven years in the US prison camp in Cuba, have shaved off their beards — an emblem of their Muslim faith — as they try to assimilate in the mid-Atlantic millionaire’s playground.

“We went to the store and they asked to buy some shaving things. The next morning they were all shaved,” Rushan Abbas, their translator, said.

The Rev Al Sharpton, the headline-grabbing US civil rights leader, has announced plans to visit the four Uighurs in Bermuda today to support Bermuda’s “humanitarian gesture”. The Uighurs say that they are tired and may not attend the meeting.

The decision by Ewart Brown, Bermuda’s elected Prime Minister, to accept the Uighurs without consulting Britain, sparked public protests on the island of 70,000 people, with one demonstration drawing 1,500 protesters.

Even members of the ruling Progressive Labour Party complained that Dr Brown had left the Cabinet in the dark. The opposition United Bermuda Party denounced his autocratic leadership style and tabled a no-confidence motion.

Dr Brown won a decisive 22-11 victory, however, after a 14-hour debate in the island’s 36-member House of Assembly, the lower chamber of Parliament. The debate ended shortly before 5am on Saturday.

He admitted that he had been wrong to tell Parliament that the island’s police chief considered the freed Uighurs a “zero security risk”, when they had been classified “high risk” pending a security assessment.

He also gave the apology that many unhappy Bermudians had sought. “I meant no harm and no disrespect. I apologise to members of this House and to the people of Bermuda for any of my decisions they disapprove of.”

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