How to lose the "GWOT a/k/a TWAT- International Edition

A masters student researching terrorist tactics who was arrested and detained for six days after his university informed police about al-Qaida-related material he downloaded has spoken of the "psychological torture" he endured in custody.

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.

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. (emphasis added - source the Guardian )

Yezza is being held at Colnbrook immigration removal centre, due to be deported on Tuesday.

"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."(emphasis added)

After teaching a regular class at Brno's Masaryk University May 6, Tomass boarded a Student Agency bus back to Prague. As usual, a stewardess served coffee, passengers such as the middle-aged man next to him went back and forth to the restroom, and Tomass worked on his laptop, that morning revising a paper titled "Al Jazeera and the Decline of Secular Ideology."

When the bus stopped, however, Tomass looked up to realize they were not at their Florenc destination, but instead being held at the Roztyly station. About half of the passengers exited, and Tomass noticed the middle-aged passenger who'd been seated next to him talking to three policemen outside. When one of the officers then boarded and asked Tomass to step out of the bus, the professor grabbed his bag and followed, unable to imagine what the problem was.

Once outside, the three officers informed Tomass that the passenger next to him had called the police after seeing the words "Al Jazeera"� on his computer screen.

Tomass confirmed that, yes, he had been writing about Al Jazeera and explained why.

'I immediately told them I was a university professor, gave them my card, said I was writing a paper, and I asked what was wrong with that.' �(Emphasis added and an IDGAS comment - It did not even say al-Qaida but was the name of a news organization. WTF) source the Prague Post

coyotemike said:
This is fucked up. Anybody want to lay bets on if they would not have been arrested if their names had been Smythe?

Hunkpapa said:
The UK story doesn't really surprise me. I would be interested to see details of the 'unrelated immigration charges' that mysteriously appeared after the guy has been here for 13 years. What the story doesn't seem to mention is that the two who were arrested could have been held for 28 days without being charged with anything, and the government here wants to increase this to 42 days.

Where did the number 42 come from?

In last year's Queen's speech, the government said it was only "considering options" for extending pre-charge detention beyond 28 days. It had previously been pushing for a 30-day increase, to 58 days. This number seems to be a compromise.

bald_eagle said:
I have an uneasy feeling that we've had similar occurrences here in the U.S.

PATRIOT Act, efforts to co-opt Google into reporting what websites people visit ...

SockPuppet said:

The real reason forstupid thing about this is that it won't catch anyone who's even vaguely competent. The deliberate policy isactual result will be that the general public will self-censor - "ooo, I can't Google that, I might show up on a list".

bald_eagle said:

I know. That's what lawyers call a "chilling effect." Not good.