Earth: Mostly Harmless

Rough justice? [Updated x2]

May 27, 2008 on 12:24 am |
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: academic freedom, deportation, home office, nottingham, security, terrorism, uk, university of nottingham

So an MA student at Nottingham University doing research into political Islam downloads a 1,500 page ‘terrorism manual’ from a U.S. government website, and asks his friend who works as a PA at the University to print it for him (he doesn’t have enough print credits himself).

The University then informs the police that this communterrorist literature has been trafficked, and the police arrest the MA student (Rizwaan Sabir) and detain him for six days without charge, after which they release him after confirming that the document was ‘illegal’. Then, they arrest the PA friend (Hicham Yezza) on immigration charges, set a date for an immigration hearing, then drop the charges in favour of a summary process involving no hearing (he’s set to be deported to Algeria on 1st June).

Starters for 10:

• How was Nottingham made aware that the material had been downloaded? Network snooping? Informants?
• How has Nottingham shown its commitment to academic freedom?
• As the prevailing leader in the discourse of security theatre, is a document available on a US government public website likely to be so dangerous it shouldn’t be seen by academic researchers, of all people?
• Should the UK government be judging what is and is not dangerous material?
• Why no fair hearing for Yezza?
• Should I securely erase my copies of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, von Clausewitz’ On War, my copies of Al-Qaeda ’statements’ and other materials I collected for my Security Studies class?
• When will the book burnings commence, and will they be carbon-neutral?

 

Incidentally, the offending document was on the US Department of Justice’ website…

If you know more about this story, please leave a comment.

More: Free Hicham Yezza blog, The Guardian, International Herald Tribune

Update: Here’s the offending material itself.

Update 2: More coverage at The Independent, ThisIsNottingham.co.uk and The Canadian Press. Still nothing from BBC News.