UK set to deport Master's student whose Master's degree research led him to look up Al Qaeda info - ratted out by University of Nottingham
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.Link (via /.)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.
Sabir was arrested on May 14 after the document was found by a university staff member on an administrator's computer. The administrator, Hisham Yezza, an acquaintance of Sabir, had been asked by the student to print the 1,500-page document because Sabir could not afford the printing fees. The pair were arrested under the Terrorism Act, Sabir's family home was searched and their computer and mobile phones seized. They were released uncharged six days later but Yezza, who is Algerian, was immediately rearrested on unrelated immigration charges and now faces deportation.
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Nottingham's been notorious for its overzealous law enforcement since the early 13th century.
I swear I wouldn't normally be That Guy Complaining About Copy-Editing Stuff in the Comments, but could we change this from "Al Quaeda" to the standard "al Qaeda" or "al-Qaida," as the article has it?
I know Cory is an Anglophile and thus tempted to insert "u" into all sorts of strange words, but please, not Arabic transliterations. (See also Iraquis, Quaddaffi, etc.)
Gee, why would we want to prevent academics from researching Terrorism?
We don't want to understand the enemy, or we don't want to find out who is behind terrorism?
Semiotix @2: Cory is Canadian. He therefore uses British spelling. Nothing to do with being an anglophile. As to the superfluous U in al Qaeda, it's an easy mistake to make, considering it usually follows Q in whatever version of English you prefer.
Antinous @1: I would say that the law enforcement in 13th century Nottingham was rather lax, actually, considering that they let gangs of disaffected youths run rampant in the forest. If anything I'd say it was the tax collection that was over-zealous.
A few things about this article (and the posting) concern me. Now I object strongly to the use of wildly overzealous and badly written terror laws but, in the name of devils advocate:
First of all, why is the University mentioning the fact that such materials shouldn't be forwarded to any 'tom, dick and harry'? Is there a reason they said this? Did he forward the materials on to people not concerned with his research?
Secondly, what is the immigration offence that he has been charged with? He doesn't face deportation under the terrorism act as far as I can tell from the article, but under an 'unrelated immigration offence'.
Am I the only one who thinks "gangs of...youths run[ning] rampant in the forest" sounds a lot like the Ramble in Central Park?
I was going to write a long-winded rant, but PresterJohn #3 got it spot on. Heaven help us if we try to know our what we're up against.
I wonder if what the police called "an illegal document which shouldn't be used for research purposes" is perhaps the sequence of PDFs hosted by the Department of Justice, the first part of which turns up at the top of the list when you google "al qaeda training manual"?
I just skimmed the first part of that document, but didn't find anything surprising - it sounds like a mix of Islamic jingoism and excerpts from Loompanics books.
I know the UK doesn't exactly have a "Bill of Rights", but I didn't know there was a Western democracy where you could be arrested for downloading something as public and unexceptional as this.
Incidentally, it isn't Sabir who faces deportation. He downloaded the manual but didn't have enough budget to print the whole thing, so he gave it to his buddy Yezza who's a sysadmin to print for him. A university staffer found it on Yezza's machine, and it's Yezza who faces deportation and danger in Algeria.
Cory is Canadian. He therefore uses British spelling. Nothing to do with being an anglophile
Er, no. It has *everything* with being an anglophile. English Canada even celebrates Victoria Day for crying out loud. (I'm an American who lived in Montreal and kind of gets why the Quebecois get annoyed with the pseudo-Victorian English Canadians)
@4: My comment about Cory's Anglophilia had to do with his living in London, although I suspect I did know on some level that he was a Canadian, too. Plus all that steampunk!
And of course, it's an extremely easy mistake to make, for exactly the reason you suggest. Like I said, I'm not normally one to freak out about typos. But for whatever reason, that one is like nails on a blackboard to me, right up there with pronouncing it "nook-yoo-ler." Thanks to BB for fixing it!
Thanks for posting on this Cory.
Hicham Yezza known as Hich is the staff member who was rearrested and they are trying to rush through a deportation order before he gets a hearing ie they are attempting to deny legal process.
"Hicham has been resident in the U.K. for 13 years, during which time he has studied for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Nottingham. He is an active member of debating societies, a prominent member of an arts and theatre group, and has written for, and edited, Ceasefire, the Nottingham Student Peace Movement magazine for the last five years."
During the police questioning they spent a lot of time fishing for information on anti-war activists.
"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)."
More here-
http://freehichamyezza.wordpress.com/
or at my blog.
And if you fancy being a dangerous terrorist too here's the US govt. website and the document in question-
http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/manualpart1_1.pdf
If you think there is an once of legitimacy to this farrago then I suggest you aquaint yourselves with the facts of this case before making a further fool of yourself.
RikB,
as you are in possession of far more facts than most of us here, could you explain the charges on which he is being threatened with deportation?
There aren't any-
Hicham was prepared to contest immigration charges in a court of law, and had a hearing date set for 16th July. The immigration services have since announced that they have dropped charges and intend to deport him on Sunday 1st June. Consequently he has been denied the right to a hearing.
Hich’s MP, Alan Simpson, has written to Liam Byrne Minister of State for Borders and Immigration to express his concerns at what he decribed as an “arbitrary deportation with no right to a proper hearing.” Nick Palmer, MP for Broxtowe said, “I hope that Mr Yezza will have his case fully and fairly considered without any rush to deport him before all the facts are clear.”
http://freehichamyezza.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/press-release-26th-may/#more-20
Today's US/UK government seems to have forgotten what it feels like to have another person's blood on your hands.
Not so much forgot as got used to.
Well now, you really do seem to have a full blown police state going in the UK don't you?
So he is being deported on a charge of there being no charge?
So he is being deported on a charge of there being no charge?
The whole point of the War on Terror is that you don't have to abide by any of the laws that have been accruing since Magna Carta. And aliens never really have rights anyway. It's fairly common practice (and much cheaper) to deport rather than try.
sigh,
something similar happened here in melbourne, australia a number of years ago. a phd student was subject to an australian federal police interview on the basis of books he borrowed from a library (though the two news reports conflict as to exactly which library the books were borrowed from, or whether they were borrowed / purchased).
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/07/26/1122143825666.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1422356.htm
racial and religious profiling at work down-under.
I'm with RIKF. The deportation may well be being expedited with all speed, but there must be some grounds. According to the article, Cory's intro is misleading when it suggests that the deportation is on the grounds of the Terrorism Act.
Heavy-handed state intervention scares me, but inaccurate reporting scares me nearly as much.
there was a time when governments could be shamed...
sigh...
Heavy-handed state intervention scares me, but inaccurate reporting scares me nearly as much.
You scare easily. Do you have any information to share with us that might substantiate your claim that there must be some grounds?
"The whole point of the War on Terror is that you don't have to abide by any of the laws that have been accruing since Magna Carta."
We don't seem to have shown yet that he is being deported due to the 'war on terror'. From the information that we currently have it seems that a visa discrepancy came to light (or was believed to have come to light) during the time of his arrest - not an entirely uncommon thing to happen regardless of the cause of the initial request. Now I'm interested to see the justification for deporting someone who, again as far as I can tell from the limited information available, seems to be a pillar of the community, so if anyone can provide that I'd love to hear it. I'm also interested in evidence regarding the risks he might be under upon deportation. If the latter can be shown or the former seems unfair then getting people behind his case would be the right thing to do.
#9 -{ I know the UK doesn't exactly have a "Bill of Rights"}
Err, wrong. I know that a lot of people on the American side of the pond seem to have the idea that history started with the Mayflower and that only the USA has ever had democracy and freedom and all that unfashionable stuff, but just plain *wrong*.
Magna Carta. As the song says "the first assault on rights divine" - which is probably being rather unfair to the republic of Rome etc. but what the hell. Then there is the 1689 Bill of Rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Bill_of_Rights) which inspired rather a lot of the US constitution. And I suppose the EU laws on human rights add another layer.
Of course, all these laws mean little (on either side of the pond) when governments an so easily find ways to ignore, abrogate or outright repudiate them.
Ha Ha. Brit paranoia and security craziness may be worse than in the USA. Did not know that was possible until now.
Antinous
I do voluntary work in a context which brings me into fairly regular contact with deportees. Mistakes are made, bad laws exist and injustices are done, but groundless cases under the law going through are rare.
And yes, I find the logical jump in the post involved in asserting that "he must be being deported because he was researching terrorism" as scary as the allegation that "he was researching terrorism so he must be deported".
Antinous
I do voluntary work in a context which brings me into fairly regular contact with deportees. Mistakes are made, bad laws exist and injustices are done, but groundless cases under the law going through are rare.
And yes, I find the logical jump in the post involved in asserting that "he must be being deported because he was researching terrorism" as scary as the allegation that "he was researching terrorism so he must be deported".
It's difficult to know where to start with CD's summary of the story. HY is not an "academic", as the story makes clear he's an administrator (I know a little of his academic history from a former colleague - he is, or was, a mechanical engineering student). Neither is a "prof", in the UK or even the wider US meaning of that term. I think it's likely that HY is still in the UK on a student visa and has either been working in violation of that (students are allowed to work a limited number of hours a week, roughly half-time), or is no longer a registered student. Proof that both were UK-born? The newspaper reports say HY is an Algerian and has been in the UK for 13 years. Someone else has pointed out the Terrorism Act blunder.
I think Nottingham University, and the police, and the home office, have acted appallingly in this case, but it isn't helpful to have this sort of grossly inaccurate reporting.
More signs of the soon to be Police State Planet earth...or is it here now?!
Nelson: "Semiotix @2: Cory is Canadian. He therefore uses British spelling."
Interestingly, the "u"s in English (which American spellling leaves out) are of French import. So being from Canada he is doubly prone to extraeous "u"s.
Also, he doesn't use "British" spelling, he speaks English. Spelling English words different to the British means you are using a local dialect (American spelling, same as Brazilian Portuguese or Moroccan French).
The other native English speaking countries include the "u" (maybe not all, but most as far as I can find tell; Australia, NewZealand, Ireland, UK, Canada, India, + the whole of the commonwealth. Oddly, the Philippines seems to use both).
noone seems to want to answer the question of why he is being deported. Is it because it is better to imply that it is because of this incident when it is a visa issue?
Until this question is answered i cant join the protest.
I'm going to be heading to the protest tomorrow. Regardless of whether the immigration charges are related or not, they're going about it completely in the wrong way, and Nottingham University should be ashamed of their actions.
I think we understand now that he won't be deported on the basis of terror charges, but on an immigration issue.
BUT, the terror investigation may have prompted the decision to deport without a hearing, and the investigation will certainly put him at vastly increased risk in his home country.
Having been suspected here he is right to fear torture abroad, even if that's not the reason he was deported.
Thus I think Cory's intro is correct in substance.
A horrible situation.
@#32: It's because of this incident either way. I'm not sure what the visa discrepancies are, but this certainly sounds like they looked for an excuse to deport without trial and found an i that wasn't dotted correctly. The visa issue just means they found a handy excuse to deport him for torture without having to justify themselves to the tiny amount that "anti-terror" laws still require.
To quote the article:
"If he is taken to Algeria, he may be subjected to severe human rights violations after his involvement in this case. He has been in the UK for 13 years. His work is here, his friends are here, his life is here."
A productive member of British society is being sent to an unfamiliar foreign country where he's likely to be tortured because a form wasn't filled in properly (possibly 13 years ago, in which case he may not have made the mistake himself if he was a child and a parent/guardian did the paperwork).
Regardless of the exact reason, this is a horrible miscarriage of justice and the exact opposite of what the anti-terror laws are meant to achieve.
As far as I can tell from reading the background to this story, a student is facing deportation for visa offences.
So where's the story?
I don't see why the university is getting all this stick. All they've done is report activity which they deemed could be suspicious. Now that this matter has been cleared up, all charges relating to the manual have been dropped.
People seem to be getting their facts mixed up... it's not the university's fault that he's being deported, and he's not being deported on charges relating to terrorism.
@#35: The story is that even if you disregard the deportation itself, what we have here is an administrator and a student being held for nearly a week and psychologically tortured without charges, for the crime of downloading and printing a research document. That's horrible in and of itself, and that's the chilling effect that most people are concerned about.
The problem with the deportation isn't necessarily the fact that the guy's being deported but that he may face further inprisonment and torture despite his innocence and having been a productive British citizen for so long.
THETOTAL: I don't think we know why HY is going to be deported, but does it not look a little suspicious that this is happening straight after the pair were arrested on anti-terrorism charges and then released?
Nottingham University are facing all this stick because of the way they went about this. Rather than asking why the (publicly available) document was on the computer, it was reported straight to the police. I think we've all used a friend to dodge printing charges at some point, and the story here seems pretty simple and easy to verify. The university deserve all they are getting and more. I'm saying this as a PhD grad from Nottingham. I'm (sadly) getting used to the idiocy of the current government, but I really don't want to see the universities helping them.
If your visa runs out and you have any contact with the law, unfortunately you face being deported.
It sounds like someone's being diligent at enforcing the rules on this guy and his acquaintance following their arrest, but I don't think it's completely outrageous that the law is applied, assuming he's responsible for renewing his visa and he let it lapse.
I have to say, this whole post does seem very reactionary. Undoubtably there's something wrong here with NU, but I would ask Cory to change the heading to something a little less sensationalist.
TheTotal:
The higher education minister, Bill Rammell, said: "The government does not want to or has never asked for staff or students to spy on their colleagues or friends. We want universities to work with staff and students on campus to isolate and challenge the very small minority who promote violent extremism."
Bettina Rentz, a lecturer in international security and Sabir's personal tutor, said: "He's a serious student, who works very hard and wants a career in academia. This is a great concern for our academic freedom but also for the climate on campus."
RikF @6:
I believe the "Tom, Dick and Harry" they were referrring to, was the SysAdmin, Mr. Yezza (who had no research-related reason to look at 'illegal' documents).
Danegeld:
AFAIK, we know nothing of the status of the visas in question.
Yezza is not a sysadmin, he is (was) an administrator - PA to the head of the school of modern languages, according to the university website.
Thanks for the clarification tshandy. Seems like he should be even more trusted then, huh?
If someone blew the whistle on Yazza possessing the file, and he's a sysadmin, that means other sysadmins are looking through each other's files. I'm a sysadmin and I find this distressing.
Just downloaded the manual. I wounder if CSIS will come knocking at my door.
Briefly looking over the document it looks to be a typical - welcome to the group, this is our history and this is what we do - type of thing.
I'm sure the IRA, the WW II French Resistance and maybe the US 1776 Freedom Fighters had similar works.
The war on terror sounds like it is going well.
They're creating another one there. Soon everyone will want to blow something up.
PaulT - the person complaining about psychological torture is not the person being deported. And the psychological torture mentioned appears to be the fact that they were locked up. As foul and upsetting as that might be, it would I think be a little risky to claim that imprisoning anyone was torture...
Also we only have someone's claim that they might be tortured upon their return to Algeria as reported in one article with nothing to substantiate it at this time. If evidence to support this can be gathered then obviously this person should not be deported.
I'm still interested in what this visa issue that he is being deported on is, but no one seems to have the answer.
Danegeld @ 37
"If your visa runs out and you have any contact with the law, unfortunately you face being deported.
It sounds like someone's being diligent at enforcing the rules on this guy and his acquaintance following their arrest, but I don't think it's completely outrageous that the law is applied, assuming he's responsible for renewing his visa and he let it lapse."
If you read the link in #12, you'll note that the man had an appointment for an immigration hearing in mid-July, at which he presumably had arranged to be represented by the appropriate sort of immigration lawyer.
Now the immigration authorities have _dropped_ whatever case they felt they had for deporting him - and are now planning to deport him June 1 (in five days), without a hearing.
So, my take is the opposite of yours: Whatever lawful reason the authorities felt they had for deporting him, they now don't need to bother, because you don't need lawful reasons for how you treat commi^H^H^H^H^Hterrists.
yeah, I've had a read around some of the stories in the independent & guardian about this and now I realise my comment @37 was nonsense.
Sorry for being dumb and if I've offended anyone, especially anyone actually involved in it.
Eutychus 28: I find the logical jump in the post involved in asserting that "he must be being deported because he was researching terrorism" as scary as the allegation that "he was researching terrorism so he must be deported".
I don't. The first was made by a blogger. The second was made by a government organization with legal enforcement powers. The same sort of error, perhaps, but vastly different consequences. Saying you find them equally frightening is like saying you're just as scared when a kitten jumps at you as when a tiger does the same thing. It may be true, but if so it means you're awfully foolish.
Arkizzle 31: This is plain nonsense. Noah Webster changed a lot of English spelling in America, and whether you think that was stupid or not, it's the way it is now. British English and American English are two dialects (actually two collections of many dialects each). It's linguistically ignorant to call one dialect group the "real" language and all the others "dialects." Everyone speaks some dialect; which dialects are privileged and which are deprecated are facts determined by sociological forces, not some kind of intrinsic linguistic value.
DaneGeld 46: Spoken like a gentleman! We see far too little genuine apology here, amid the LARGE supply of things people ought to apologize for.
Xoph, I included myself in that number actually, I speak an Irish dialect of English.
I certainly wasn't being elitist, as I'm not British, and didn't comment on Noah Webster's actions, nor make a judgement.
I pointed out the interestingness of Cory being from a doubly "u"-prone country (the French and English speaking halves of Canada) and noted that if anything it was more correct to say America had a different spelling than the rest of the world (in regard, specifically, to the use of the extraneous "u"), as the rest of the world tends to spell the 'British' English way.
So regardless of dialects, there are basically two ways to spell a particular group of words, the American way and the 'everybody else' way.
No judgements, just comments.
Ark, fair enough. I was reacting to "Spelling English words different to the British means you are using a local dialect." As long as you realize (heh) that spelling words in a way identical to the British one also means you are using a local dialect, we're cool.
A semantic accord! I love it!
Get a thick bit of paper and a quill, let's make it official :)
Just as soon as we work out whether it should be on Letter or A4.
(Why do you prefer the Sassenach spellings anyway...?)
Letter or A4?
Pfft! Surely you mean Emperor or Antiquarian?
Sassenach? Sure why do I even speak English in the first place?
fascinating! I shall have all my works bound Emperor then. It'll total well under a half page, but think of the cover art!
h3y, | $p3ak @ |0c4! [)1@l€©7, +¤0 !!!1!1one!cos(0)!!
The cos(0) is a nice touch, Max. Mind if I use that?
Yeh, i like it :)
Feel free - the more complex the equation, the higher you score on the nerd scale.
"but the student faces deportation to Algeria under the Terrorism Act, where he believes he will be tortured. "
Would be nice if this was corrected or link to substantiating material was added since the linked article clearly says only that,
"They were released uncharged six days later but Yezza, who is Algerian, was immediately rearrested on unrelated immigration charges and now faces deportation."
Clearly holding them for six days for downloading the manual was idiotic and a good example of the trivially stupid ways such anti-terror laws are abused.