[csaa-forum] RE:The Culture of Academic freedom in the UK: Student and Staff arrests at Nottingham University

[Felicity Colman]

More on the subject of the current culture of academic freedom from the UK, 
at the level of internal student-supervision research. 

Subject: Student and Staff arrests at Nottingham University
 

- apologies for crossposting -

Dear Friends -

I'm writing to call your attention to a recent incident at the University 
of Nottingham, where one of our graduate students at the School of Politics 
and International Relations and an administrative member of staff at the 
Department of Engineering were arrested by armed police under the Terrorism 
Act of 2000.

Their alleged "crime" was that the graduate student had downloaded an 
Al-Qaeda training manual from a US government website for research 
purposes, as he's writing his MA dissertation on Islamic extremism and 
international terrorist networks. He had then sent this to his friend in 
the Department of Engineering for printing. The printed material had been 
spotted by other staff and reported to the University authorities who 
passed on the information to the police.

The two were then arrested by armed police on May 14 and held for six days 
without charge, before being released without charge on May 20. During the 
six days they were imprisoned, the men had their homes raided and their 
families harassed by the police. It is worth noticing that in talking to 
one of my colleagues, a police officer remarked that the incident would 
never have occurred if the persons involved had been "blonde, Swedish PhD 
students" (the two men were of British-Pakistani and Algerian backgrounds 
respectively).

The incident was recently reported in the Times Higher Education Supplement 
online:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=402125&c=2

Needless to say, this raises hugely important issues both about academic 
freedom and civil liberties. Obviously, there is the issue that for those 
of us involved in research on contentious issues we will by necessity have 
to consult primary materials of a controversial nature, and the fact that 
the material is controversial should not lead to it being deemed as 
illegitimate research material. Moreover, we should not under any 
circumstances have to fear for infringements upon our civil liberties as a 
consequence of doing our jobs. Moreover, it goes without saying that the 
university should guarantee the academic freedom, freedom of speech and 
expression, and civil liberties of all members of staff and students, 
irrespective of ethnic and religious background or political beliefs!

I would be most grateful if you could circulate this e-mail as widely as 
possible in the interest of raising awareness and attention about this 
incident and the wider issues of academic freedom that it gives rise to, to 
as many of your friends and colleagues as possible!

Please consider writing to the University of Nottingham to express your 
concern about this case. Letters should be sent to the Registrar, Dr Paul 
Greatrix, at registrars at nottingham.ac.uk; please send a copy to 
alf.nilsen at nottingham.ac.uk.

Regards

Dr. Alf Gunvald Nilsen

RCUK Fellow, Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, School of 
Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cssgj/index.php
University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, England, UK
Office: (0044) (0) 1159514032



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