I was concerned, but not surprised, to see that a postgraduate student at Nottingham University was recently arrested and held by police for six days under anti-terrorism laws, before being released without charge.  Rizwaan Sabir drew the attention of the authorities after downloading, as part of research for his dissertation on Islamic extremism, a supposed version of an al-Qaeda training manual.  Sabir passed the document, which is freely available online and which he had downloaded from a US government website(pdf), to Hisham Yezza, a member of the university’s administrative staff so that he could get it photocopied without incurring £75 copying charges.  As Lenin’s Tomb reported,

Someone, somehow, saw this material on Yezza’s computer and, thanks to the culture of prying and snitching encouraged by the government and right-wing media, assumed the worst and told the University authorities. The authorities, instead of checking with the staff member in question, or even making a roundabout preliminary investigation, called the police.

Long story short, the pair were arrested and detained for nearly a week while their homes were raided and their families harrassed.  

One reason this frightening tale caught my eye is that, as someone teaching at an English university, I have been witness to continued efforts by the government to bully universities into precisely this kind of activity. The other reason is that the universities secretary, John Denham, was due to attend a debate next week at Southampton University on the very topic of academic freedom.  I say “was”, because today I received an email from the organisers letting me know that the debate had had to be cancelled, owing to the non availability of Mr Denham, who

has been called to vote in the Commons on the counter-terrorism bill and this is a three-line whip.   We are obviously disappointed to lose this opportunity to debate with the minister our thoughts and concerns surrounding academic freedom.  

If and when the debate is rescheduled, I will be more eager than ever to learn how the minister squares his support for academic freedom with the treatment of Messrs Sabir and Yezza, and his role in pushing through the extended detention of terror suspects without charge from 28 days to 42 days.