When research becomes a crime?

Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 November 1999 00:00

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The walls have ears, careless talk costs lives, think before you print?

The small mindedness of a small island resurfaced recently with the case of Rizwaan Sabir and Hisham Yezza at Nottingham University,

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=402125&c=2

Much of the outcry regarding this case has revolved around academic freedom and the continued state coercion of academic institutions to effectively spy and inform on its staff and students. The Guardian coupled the story with that of Shiv Malik whose publisher Constable & Robinson handed his manuscripts over to the police:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/22/pressandpublishing.uksecurity?gusrc=rss&feed=uknews 

The probability is that you are reading this at or as part of research conducted at an academic institution, if that happens to be in the United Kingdom then you too could be committing a crime, or so the UK's Terrorism Act states. And if you do happen to be of Islamic faith, and you are detained then you could join the "gang" in Whitemoor...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/may/25/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime

 

 

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written by Madeline , June 05, 2008

An article entitled "Security on Campus" published in The Guardian last weekend and following on from the Yezza/Sabir case, quotes Gavin Reid of the UCU National Executive Committee as saying that "self-censorship is coming" to universities and academic research communities. Later in the article, a Southampton academic's decision to seek legal advice over articles to be published in a journal is also mentioned.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2283183,00.html

What is the reality behind this claim? To what extent is self-censorship shaping the conduct of research at the current time, particularly into issues of terrorism, "extremist" Islamic groups, apparently radical or potentially suspect individuals etc.?How, also, might academics' own self-censorship contribute to a "framing" of findings to make them acceptable to bodies that might otherwise seek to limit, silence, gag or even detain their authors?



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