Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Islamophobia and the Nottingham Two

anon@indymedia.org (Jeremy Bates) | 27.04.2011 17:23

Rod Thornton, a University of Nottingham lecturer who became embroiled in the struggle for justice for Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza, has published his extensive account of the case of the Nottingham Two. Pieced together from heavily redacted Freedom of Information requests, Rizwaan's Data Protection Access requests and even meetings with Special Branch officers, it paints a damning picture of the University of Nottingham's management. For those who don't have the time to read the entire paper, this is an attempt to summarise what I thought were some of the most interesting sections.

Thornton is a lecturer in the School of Politics with interests in terrorism and counter-insurgency. He could be described as being the University's expert on terrorism, although his judgement was never sought by the management in assessing the legitimacy of the documents in Yezza's possession that led to the terror arrests. It is a pity because this expert knowledge could have saved a lot of suffering for the two innocent men who were wrongfully arrested and could have avoided the management embarking on an apparent crusade to see them convicted. Thornton was Postgraduate Tutor in the department and so had responsibility for the well-being of students like Rizwaan, something he seems to have done admirably whilst senior managers colluded to get rid of him.

For readers who aren't familiar with the case, I should briefly explain the series of events that led to two innocent men being arrested and questioned by police for 6 days (not to mention triggering harassment of them by police and security agencies that continues to this day). Documents were discovered by a colleague on Yezza's computer that alarmed that colleague. They included two journal articles and a document known as the Al Qaeda Training Manual (more on that later). The University authorities were alerted and it seems that the Registrar himself made the decision to involve the police. Yezza's office was sealed off whilst police made extensive searches. Sabir and Yezza were both arrested after trying to find out what was going on at Yezza's office. It emerged that Sabir, whilst researching material for his PhD on radical Islam, had emailed Yezza the documents to print on his work computer. Neither were charged in relation to the incident.

The crux of Thornton's argument is that, rather than make a thorough risk assessment to determine whether to call in anti-terrorist police, the University's Registrar and Security pre-judged Yezza and Sabir. Because they were young Muslim men, they were automatically assumed to be involved in terrorism and the possibility of their innocence was never entertained. It is not hard to find racist assumptions in the released emails and documents that Thornton has uncovered. (Take for example the assumption of Gary Stevens, Head of Security, that using the word 'brother' in an email was 'Jihadist-speak'!) The men were presumed guilty by the university, something revealed in the fact that management had drawn up a suspension notice for Sabir, signed by the Vice-Chancellor, on the day after the arrests.

There is a very interesting discussion of the Al Qaeda Training Manual contained in Thornton's paper that makes it perfectly clear that, had any expert on the document been consulted by the University authorities, a lot of misunderstanding could have been avoided. To start with it has nothing to do with Al Qaeda and is most likely the work of a radical offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Much of it seems to date from the 1950s with some additions in the 1980s. Interestingly, it's real name is Military Studies in the Jihad against the Tyrants (referring to the Presidents of Egypt) and was renamed by the US Department of Justice in order to 'sex it up' and increase the likelihood that its possession would lead to convictions! Thornton describes it as an 'insurgent/guerilla/freedom-fighter manual' with contents that 'are not actually aimed at activists who want to spread fear or "terror" – i.e. "terrorists".' Indeed, the version which Yezza was in possession of was not the full version, although Thornton helpfully points out that the full version is freely available from the University's library! It is clear from Thornton's investigations that no one from the University' senior management ever bothered to read the document in question, although they did not let that stop them from making false statements about it and judgements about those in possession of it.

After Sabir and Yezza were released, the University had to go on the defensive and protect its image which had, understandably, been damaged by its rash and destructive actions. Via a number of public statements, the senior management sought to assert its own version of events. As Thornton reveals, much of this was outright lying. The events were reconstructed to portray the University as a supportive and responsible institution and dispel the reality that senior managers had attempted to wash their hands of Sabir and Yezza as soon as possible. Indeed, the decision of the Registrar was now reimagined as a 'collective decision':
'The University had to make a risk assessment - no panic, no hysteria, just a straightforward risk assessment...Our concerns were conveyed to the police as the appropriate body to investigate (no judgement was made by us)' - Campbell, Freedom Still Reigns
Of course there had been no risk assessment, no collective decision and plenty of rash judgements.

The senior management closed ranks to protect one of their own. Once very public lies have been told they have to keep being told to maintain the fictions that they give rise to. Thornton goes into considerable depth exposing the lies that were disseminated to students and staff via the University's portal. In the meantime, staff who were critical of the management's handling of the affair were persecuted and subjected to disciplinary action, whilst those who actively colluded with management, such as Drs Macdonald Daly and Sean Matthews, were rewarded with access to what should have been confidential personal information about Sabir.

The lengths that the University went to to kick Sabir out once he had completed his Masters were extreme. Once he had got the message and realised that his interests would be best served studying elsewhere, disgusting emails were sent by his Head of Department, expressing delight at the 'good news'.

One of the most interesting revelations for myself, as a former student activist at the University, was that the university had drawn up a list of 'Events on Campus' during 2008 that, according to Thornton, included 'protests, film showings, seminars, stalls, "cultural days", meetings or presentations that related to "Muslim issues": Gaza, Palestine, talks by ex-Guantanamo prisoners, etc.' This looks like racial/religious profiling and is further evidence that the University's security were operating with islamophobic prejudice, something not helped by the fact that all of the security department are white. Thornton describes the situation at the University as one where 'any activity that is seen as pro-Muslim automatically comes to be seen by management as anti-Semitic.' A Security Report, prepared by the University, linked a silent march held in protest against attacks on academic freedom with claims that anti-Semitism was on the increase at the University.
 
Perhaps the most worrying sequence of events described in this paper, however, is that which led to the Home Office describing the events in Nottingham as a 'major Islamist Plot'. Vice-Chancellor of the University at the time, Colin Campbell, wrote to Universities Minister, Bill Rammell, erroneously referring to the document in Yezza's possession as an Al Qaeda Training Manual as opposed to the Al Qaeda Training Manual. Given that one is the 'sexed up' title of a relatively outdated document, unrelated to terrorism, and the other would be something useful to training an Al Qaeda recruit, this error is quite inexcusable. Campbell also lied by saying that the manual 'WAS NOT the version you can purchase from Amazon' (it was). This led to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) repeating these errors/lies and others including the 'fact' that Sabir was arrested for trying to interfere with the police removal of Yezza's computer (pure fiction). Soon, the story was not one of a terrible mistake which led to two innocent people being wrongfully arrested, but what the Home Office described as a 'major Islamist plot'. Like many other events that have been described as such, it was nothing of the sort.

Thanks to Rod Thornton's sense of justice and refusal to give in, the Kafkaesque twists of the Nottingham Two's story are now in the public domain. The full paper is well worth reading for those interested in corruption and racism in public bodies. It serves as a perfect illustration of the damage that the 'war on terror' has unleashed in our society.

 


anon@indymedia.org (Jeremy Bates)
- http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/articles/1720

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech