UK Academics Arrested For Researching al-Qaida 681
D Afifi writes "Two political researchers at the University of Nottingham, in the UK, have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for downloading Al-Qaida material from a US government website. The material was to be used for research in terrorist tactics. There has been a huge public outcry, with university staff planning a march to demonstrate against the attack on academic freedom. Yet, one of the students, an Algerian, is still held in custody under immigration charges and is being fast-tracked for deportation."
Re:Spread it around? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Spread it around? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Another line a long line of insults (Score:3, Informative)
Got another! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Immigrant. (Score:5, Informative)
And what is that reason? Seriously, have you ever had to carry a Green Card? Because I have. For years I was told that anytime I left the country I could be denied entry for just about any reason, owing to the fact that I was really only allowed to stay here at the pleasure of Uncle Sam. Then I had to spend thousands of dollars and be fingerprinted, photographed, investigated, and grilled by examiners before I could become a U.S. citizen. What did you ever have to do to earn the right to come and go as you please, or to vote? What makes you better than me?
The whole business is nonsense. And when you hear firsthand stories of people whose families were broken up by ridiculous immigration policies enforced by xenophobic zealots in the name of "patriotism," or "protecting our jobs," or "failure to learn our language," or whatever the excuse is this week, the situation starts to look considerably less cut-and-dried than you make it out to be.
True, there are "perfectly legal" ways to get into a country, just like there are "perfectly legal" was to buy a Ferrari, or run for President. That doesn't mean those options are open to everybody. Plus, the mere fact that this guy is pursuing an advanced degree at university should be proof enough that the "stealing our jobs" excuse doesn't apply in this case. Your kneejerk obeisance to immigration policy on the mere basis that "it's policy, ergo we follow it" is just another way of distracting attention from your own need to protect your position of privilege.
BBC (Score:5, Informative)
Two details should be considered before judging the situation and blaming random people:
This is a gross mistake anyway, but it's a quite a bit less 1984-ish than one might think from the summary.
Re:Immigrant. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The Pete Townsend defense, eh? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Another line a long line of insults (Score:5, Informative)
OK, I'll bite. Here is the 1998 letter sent to President Clinton [zfacts.com] urging the removal of Saddam Hussein. Check out the second paragraph:
Three years before 9/11 occurred Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others were pushing to topple Saddam Hussein to protect the oil supply. WMDs are mentioned, but the primary context is stability in the Middle East and access to oil.
So yes, bad intelligence played a part. If there wasn't oil involved, I doubt the US would have used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. Do you really think these guys care about "our moderate Arab allies" and Israel?
Re:BBC (Score:1, Informative)
It's Arabic. A different alphabet. It's transliterated into the Roman alphabet about as many ways as the Koran/Qur'an/Korran/Qaran/Alcoran/et cetera.
Re:No surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
From the second paragraph of TFA:
Re:No surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe in the central US we get a different class of immigrants than those Britain deals with -- but the folks I meet here are smart, hard-working, well-educated, practical people more interested in good lives for themselves and their families than ideology from back home.
So the net result is that in the UK and Sweden you have lots of people who are essentially disconnected from society. In that sort of environment it's not surprising that some of them fall for the lie that Britain would be better under Shariah law.
Some UK muslims were actually captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban and they told the British soldiers who caught them that they would go back to the UK and claim benefits.
But people that are willing to use violence to replace liberal democracy with a far harsher system are 'cultural enemies'. Back in World War II British citizens who even made propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis were executed for treason. Certainly I think people who are willing to use or even threaten to use force to overthrow democracy are traitors.
But I'd change the immigration system too to try to attract more pro Western immigrants.
Hilarious passage from the training manual (Score:1, Informative)
In a newer apartment, avoid talking loud because prefabricated ceilings and walls [used in the apartments] do not have the same thickness as those in old ones.
Most of the manual (the first one) is bullshit. BTW I'm surprised that they have given Israeli and Russian examples(what they did to achieve their goals) wherever possible.
Re:What is the definition of terrorist anyway (Score:4, Informative)
(A month later that college received the largest single individual donation of any college in state history. Evil has it's rewards.)
Re:No surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
Please RTFA. They were arrested under terror legislation, then the charges were dropped. They aren't being prosecuted under terror legislation.
However, it looks like during the investigation, the police discovered that one of them was an illegal immigrant. He is being deported for this.
Now he may or may not be here illegally, and he should definitely get the chance to defend himself before being deported, but please get your facts straight. Nobody is being prosecuted under terror legislation.
Re:Another line a long line of insults (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, a war for oil, but if you believe that meant "a war so that we could have more oil" then you are deluded.
Re:Spread it around? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar [wikipedia.org]
True story.
Re:No surprise... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No surprise... (Score:3, Informative)
True, but you don't often hear that.
Or just walk across the border.
First of all, till last year uneducated national minorities were imported in nearly unlimited quantities "for the needs" of the catering industry. Their lobby group is putting a mighty scream now, but frankly I do not see why anyone besides the cook in an ethnic restaurant needs to belong to the restaurant ethnicity.
Second, the situation with qualified labour is not as difficult as people claim. Sorting out a work permit or work permit transfer for qualified personnel is trivial. The problem is not the government throwing spanners in the works. The problem is that the average british HR department does not give a flying f***. A testament to this are companies like Unisys (or Nortel in the late 90-es). They have done the effort to organise their supply chain to hire highly qualified people from Eastern Europe, Russia, etc and they have whole departments consisting mostly of foreigners. It is also not a question of "cheap labour". They are quite often payed more than a brit in the same position.
As far as the assylum seekers they are a minority. The majority till recently were the ethnic catering and "through relative" imports.
Re:Spread it around? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No surprise... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:No surprise... (Score:1, Informative)
Oh yes that is fortunate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7/7 [wikipedia.org]
Down the memory hole.
Re:No surprise... (Score:3, Informative)
The BNP is actually to the left of New Labour (or Neues Arbeit as I prefer to call them) on many issues, including the war in Iraq and the adventure in Afghanistan, and would not be the 'far right' regime that you fear.
I don't read the Mail, or the Sun, or the Express - in fact I'm an Independent reader, but I see the problems caused by the second generation Muslim underclass in our towns and cities as the most important issue to resolve if we are to continue to have a free and independent Britain.
It's not the threat of Sharia that worries me - it's the real possibility of more summers of Asian youths rioting in the streets of Oldham because they think this country owes them a living.
As the song from Phoenix Nights goes - Send the buggers back.
Re:No surprise... (Score:3, Informative)
Several of my family members ended up in Sweden as refugees. Been through the refugee camps, had to go to school again before they were allowed to work, all while facing discrimination from many people they met (not ALL people, and not the majority, but it's still a factor).
You have been reading too much anti-immigrant propaganda, I'm afraid. Evil foreigners living off benefits, plotting the downfall of the Western civilisation, etc. The life of an asylum seeker is pathetic, they fear deportation on a daily basis, get just enough to subsist on, aren't allowed to work, and face discrimination everywhere.
Go visit one of these refugee camps or camps for asylum seeker, and ask them how they live.
Re:No surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/008.qmt.html#008.055 [usc.edu]
Here are the (primary) rules specified for interpreting said statement. They are quite clear :
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/003.qmt.html#003.007 [usc.edu]
Needless to say the 8:55 statement is not allegorical (check for yourself and compare, for example, with the later chapters). So the verse is "of fundamental meaning" "clear" and "decisive". In any interpretation it is forbidden to go seek "hidden meanings", nor is any indirection allowed.
Here is one of the official "guides" for interpreting said statement. It, again, does not lack in clarity :
http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=8&tid=20426 [tafsir.com]
"Allah states here that the worst moving creatures on the face of the earth are those who disbelieve, who do not embrace the faith, and break promises whenever they make a covenant, even when they vow to keep them,"
(this is later further elaborated to mean that peace treaties between muslims and non-muslims have exactly 1 purpose : deception of the non-muslims, allowing the muslims to become militarily stronger, with the further stipulation that regardless of any treaty, every 10 years there must be at least 1 attack, no matter what it may cost the muslims. There can never be peace. Only temporary (max 10 years) cessation of hostilities)
("islam" means "opression" in the military sense, meaning it is enforced, not voluntary, so that it has stuff like this is hardly surprising, generally "submission" is taken as a translation, but it does not refer to the speaker (that would be istaslam if it is militarily enforced, or astaslam if it is done freely), but to a third party, nor does it mean peace (which is salaam). It means actively making others submit (by the practice of "hisbah" for example), not submitting yourself, like in Christianity)
Re:No surprise... (Score:3, Informative)
Islamization? Muslims are a tiny proportion of our population and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Immigration is going down not up.
Your blind hatred of non-whites sickens me, and your lack of knowledge about the reality of Britain amuses me.
Re:No surprise... (Score:3, Informative)
That's true, but you also have to realize it all depends on proportion. The children of those immigrants had to learn to speak English because no single immigrant ethnic group was dominant over the others or the incumbent population. With the current situation, however, there are so many Mexican immigrants that there's a real danger that huge swaths of the country could become predominantly Mexican, which is bad because then they'd never assimilate and we'd have the same sort of problems as Quebec or Yugoslavia.
Re:No surprise... (Score:2, Informative)
I am not saying that there were no problems and eventual persecution but over the centuries these countries were "liberal" enough that all these minorities continued to exist and even flourished. Where else can you find such a diversity of cultures living together for so long? Multiculturalism is something very new for western civilization.
Suicide bombings did not exist until the 1980's. Terrorism in arab countries was no different from terrorism in other places until 1980. And it was not restricted to Muslims. In Lebanon there were even a few Christian suicide bombers.
So what is wrong? Did islam suddenly change? Or your statement might be wrong? It is interesting that the more the west pokes on arab countries, the worse things get. In palestine trouble began with massive European Jewish immigration in early 20th century under British rule. Suicide bombings began with Israeli invasion of Lebanon and US support of some factions in the civil war.
It is obvious that these countries have issues but western involvement certainly has responsibilities. But one thing is certain: Islamic rule co-existed every sort ethnic and religious faith for a 1000 years. Don't mistake recent behavior of a few people with a the attitudes of a civilization.
Re:No surprise... (Score:2, Informative)
You obviously have no sense of proportions. And you should study logic. It is not that difficult.
Re:except there is still a problem (Score:1, Informative)
itself was discovered, but the printing of the document. This was seen by a
member of staff who notified the police.