UK: PhD student detained under anti-terrorism laws
Posted on 06. Oct, 2008 by admin in Academic Freedom, News
UK PhD student, Rizwaan Sabir was detained for six days by anti-terror investigators then released without charge. The reason: Rizwaan was researching Al-Qaida for his PhD thesis, and had downloaded a publicly available document known as “the Al-Qaida training manual” – a document available on the US Department of Justice website.
Unfettered questioning and microscopic searches for six days did not produce any evidence, and I was released without charge. The police had finally realised I was a postgraduate student studying terrorism; not a member of an al-Qaida sleeper-cell.
Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, has made it clear, in his speeches and through his department’s guidance to universities, that academic freedom is important and that it is vital that academics and students should be able to study terrorism. Nevertheless, in apparent contravention of the government guidance, the police threatened me with further detention if I used the document for my research.
I would like to say my freedom to research had the full backing of my University authorities, but unfortunately they appear unwilling to uphold the right of their students to read and study legal, openly available documents free from the fear of arrest.
Similar laws in Australia resulted in the removal of books from the University of Melbourne Baillieu library in 2006, after they were refused classification. The books were Defence of the Muslim Lands and Join the Caravan by a Palestinian Islamist, the late Abdallah Azzam, one of the ideological foundations of modernAl-Qaida.
