I am so angry. I have just read in yesterday's Guardian that an MA student at Nottingham University was 'arrested and detained for six days after his university informed police about al-Qaida related material he downloaded'. He downloaded this information for his MA course because he was researching terrorist tactics! The info was found on a uni computer by an administrator and linked to him, he was arrested and 'his family home was searched and their computer and mobile phones seized'.
This makes me so sick. How are we, as academics, to work when we are slowly being scared out of researching particular topics, for fear of jail? How is there to be an alternate, honest, transparent discourse to British Government policy when no one can research this information? He was told that it was 'an illegal document which shouldn't be used for research purposes. To this day no one has clarified this point ... '. His supervisors confirmed that all the literature he had downloaded was relevant to his research. This is ridiculous, terrifying and completely unjust.
Ref: Curtis, P. (2008) 'Student researching al-Qaida tactics held for six days.' In The Guardian, Saturday May 24, 2008. Pp.8.
x J
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2 comments:
This made me sick too, especially since I'm going to the University of Nottingham to do my PhD this September. I don't really know what to think - except how long will it be before all of our research is dangerous?
Good luck with everything!
Hey Zalfa
Isn't it awful? One of the Profs at another uni apparantly suggested that every uni academic should download 'The Document' for solidarity!
Good luck for your PhD too!
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