Student researching al-Qaida tactics held for six days | higher news | EducationGuardian.co.uk
WTF is going on with the police?
A masters student researching terrorist tactics who was arrested and detained for six days after his university informed police about al-Qaida-related material he downloaded has spoken of the “psychological torture” he endured in custody.
Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics.
The case highlights what lecturers are claiming is a direct assault on academic freedom led by the government which, in its attempt to establish a “prevent agenda” against terrorist activity, is putting pressure on academics to become police informers.
I don’t get the reasoning behind this action. How can he be prosecuted for downloading something from a US government website? Why do those responsible not recognize that the AQ manual is required reading for anyone in this field? Get a grip!
Update: The more I think about this case the more puzzled I get. The article is portraying this as a threat to academic freedom and our commenters reckon its an example of profiling in action. Probably true on both counts but possibly defensible also (there really is a terror threat and radicalism is prevalent in universities). That said, the article mentions a ‘1,500 page’ Al Qaeda training manual which I am assuming (because its logical and about the right length) must be the Encyclopedia of Jihad downloaded from a ‘US gov’t website’. But I cannot find the full-length document on any government website. If anybody has a link please send it to me. What’s available are heavily redacted and translated versions. The real thing is available, I am told, in Arabic, on Jihadi websites. So, is the article wrong and he did not get it off a US government website? Or is the article wrong and what he had access to was the redacted version (which would be less worrisome and make the police look even worse)? Or something else? The story as reported just doesn’t add up. In any case, the basic point remains that discouraging precisely those students who possess the language skills and background from doing research on AQ terrorism is self-defeating.
Saturday, 24, May, 2008 at 8:04 pm |
[...] tips: Kings of War, IRG. No Comments Leave a Commenttrackback addressThere was an error with your comment, [...]
Saturday, 24, May, 2008 at 11:39 pm |
Sounds badly like April, 1st.
Monday, 26, May, 2008 at 12:53 pm |
You seem genuinely surprised by this – is it because it occured in the UK? No doubt you are aware the myriad stories around the US arresting (if they are lucky as to oposed to rendering them if unlucky) virtually anybody who has an Arab sounding name. Or professors who jaywalk.
The shredding of the bill of rights, wholesale skirting (at best) of the US consititution, dismissal of the Geneva convention and denial of Habeas Corpus (to name but a few of those minor issues all those terrorist loving lib’rls like to get upset about) was bound to have an effect on its allies at some point.
The traditional response to your post is how do you know that the student is not a terrorist? Surely doing a masters in terrorism would be a great way to learn how to be a great terrorist? How can you be so naive? Just look at his name! etc. etc.
Clearly you should all be locked up and tortured (or enthusiastically euphemised if you object to the word torture) until you admit the truth immediately for the safety of whoever is left at liberty…a short list I imagine.
Monday, 26, May, 2008 at 4:14 pm |
This is what racial profiling is all about. Nailing a Muslim student accessing AQ related documents (which incidentally are freely available online) is, as John M says, hardly surprising. Students visiting the Finsbury park mosque are monitored, student groups in London University College’s like SOAS and Kings are under constant surveillance. The university is the new Mosque – place of recruitment. This is a fact that has been increasingly realised in the UK, and a fact of life in th East. Today in the UK, law and enforcement agencies are convinced that a particular brand of student led goups are far more dangerous than organisd groups working through the Mosque. The problem with this thinking is not so much its reasoning (history in the UK has shown that certain brand of Muslim students in elite institutions have eventually joined groups like HT – most popular in the 1990’s), but its concequences. On the one hand, we in the counter-narrative quarter argue that solutions to radicalisation must emerge from wihin the Muslim communiy – as they will prove to be most effective. But on the other hand our society persecutes those who may/may not be researching terrorism/radicalisation/Islamic Jihad for peaceful purposes. Profiling is a double edged sword and requires much more attention. If we pursecute those within the Muslim society who seek higher education in relevant areas of debate – than how do we create a breed of ‘liberal’ Islamic scholars who appreciate the debate and work from the inside and seek to ignite a process of change. The root of this issue is racial profiling and its imact on radicalisition. This is perhaps a worthy cause fr the IRG!
Monday, 26, May, 2008 at 7:36 pm |
[...] Update: David here. I’ve blogged this also over at Kings of War: [...]
Monday, 26, May, 2008 at 10:52 pm |
In the abstract, one can see why this might raise alarm bells – Muslim student poking about for jihadist material and getting large amounts of it printed off in co-ordination with a foreign national on the admin staff. I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable that this raised a couple of eyebrows with someone. However, surely this could have been handled an awful lot more gingerly? As far as I can tell, if they’d taken the time to do a bit of low-key poking around, spoken to a few people rather than storming in and arresting everyone, it would probably have become pretty apparent pretty quickly that it was study-related.
In all seriousness, how long before one of our War Studies brethren trips some wires somewhere and gets fingered?*
*And not in a good way. Wokka-wokka.
Tuesday, 27, May, 2008 at 4:00 pm |
[...] recommendation #1: Don’t be stupid Following on from recent posts on KOW ‘Beyond Stupid‘ and on IRG ‘Worrying Implications of the Terrorism Act for Insurgency [...]
Tuesday, 27, May, 2008 at 4:03 pm |
[...] the Worrying Implications of the Terrorism Act Following on from recent posts on KOW ‘Beyond Stupid‘ and on IRG ‘Worrying Implications of the Terrorism Act for Insurgency [...]
Monday, 2, June, 2008 at 4:17 pm |
[...] the first Pogo Prize. Better luck next time Czech Republic. This comes via Kings of War, (First post and the second post. The second post includes another incident in the UK. The second incident was [...]
Thursday, 12, June, 2008 at 12:33 am |
On Anthony’s point that it might have been handled more gingerly – certainly it ought to have been, but one of the reasons this has made the news is that it wasnt. As the linked post ‘How to win the ‘war of ideas’, recommendation #1: Don’t be stupid’ points out, the majority of cases are resolved far more quickly and simply than that; its exceptions that make the news.
(On an unrelated note, this is why I dont mind that there are only depressing stories on the news – it implies that we all still think that bad things are the exception. This is heartening.)
Thursday, 12, June, 2008 at 2:55 pm |
To John M.
You’re an idiot. If you really think racial profiling is that bad in the US, take a trip to Florida Institute of Technology. There is probably a 30% Arab population living happily on campus, with a strong Muslim Student Union, nearby mosques and restaurants, and all the freedoms America has to offer. AND if there was ever an Arab stereotype, they fit all of them, and yet, contrary to your apocalyptic visions of the US, they are not hassled at all by authorities. Lay off the infowar websites and come back to reality. This is only one example of many in the US of Arab students and citizens living happily, without being harassed or profiled by the police.
Friday, 13, June, 2008 at 11:01 pm |
Thanks for the example Chris, its interesting to hear that. For all the America bashing we get up to in Europe, most of us do recognise that there arent many places with more freedoms than the US. Its worth remembering though, that the USA is almost an entire continent, all on its own, so you can find an individual example to prove almost anything. I’d be interested to know whether there are any wider studies on the issue?