I
I June 2011
Muslim students secretly ‘filmed’ at university 4
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A student organisation has expressed outrage after it was claimed Muslim students had been secretly filmed at a university. The Guardian newspaper claimed that security staff from Nottingham university have been filming students on campus as a method of monitoring potential extremists. The documents, published on the website Unileaks, charts the May 2008 arrest by counter-terrorism officers of Nottingham student Rizwaan Sabir and of Hicham Yezza. Sabir had downloaded an al-Qaida training manual as part of research for a dissertation. Both men were arrested and then released without charge after it emerged that the information was also available at student bookshops. The newspaper claims university
security staff then kept a log of Middle Eastrelated activities on campus, including details of talks and seminars revolving around Palestine and other issues. Nabil Ahmed, President of FOSIS said, “That the university filmed issues relating to Palestine and the Middle East demonstrates exactly who the university was seeking to target.” “In light of the government’s recent Prevent review, it is evident to see the severe repercussions on student and staff welfare when a university attempts to tackle sensitive
issues relating to counter-terrorism . A Nottingham University told the newspaper no footage of protests was retained or passed to other authorities, including the police or government. Security staff kept lists of protests in case extra security was required.
BBC accused of broadcasting “lies”
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been deplored for spreading lies over its claims that the NATO was conducting “precision bombing” in Libya. Campaigners attending the annual conference of Stop the War Coalition, including anti-poverty charity War on Want, slammed the BBC on Saturday for claiming that the Western military alliance’s invasion of Libya will protect civilians, because they are using modern military technology to avoid civilians’ deaths. War on Want executive director John Hillary lashed out at the broadcaster for giving coverage to NATO airstrikes, particularly attacks by US-made remote-controlled Predator drones, against Libyan people since late April. A BBC correspondent had written in March that the “NATO coalition were “plainly making big efforts to
avoid killing civilians”. “The old myth of pinpoint precision bombing has become much more of a reality”, said BBC correspondent John Simpson. “Drones can hit military targets more easily in urban areas, minimising the risk of civilian casualties,” wrote another unnamed reporter. But, John Hillary dismissed claims of increased precision as sheer “lies”, because the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan is an explicit example of indiscriminate killings. A study carried out by western military experts David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum in 2009 consolidated the fact that of the more than 700 people killed in Pakistan by drone attacks that year, only 14 were known al-Qaeda operatives and the rest were civilians. The War on Want executive
director described drones as indiscriminate weapons, the use of which violates international law. “…yet the BBC with absolutely no backing or justification feels happy to go out and say these are precise bombing instruments”, said Hillary. “We have to stand up and say enough with these lies from the BBC. “This is not precision bombing - this is indiscriminate bombing with massive civilian casualties,” he added. The use of drone missiles has also been described by the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Philip Alston as a crime against humanity. The New America Foundation, a right-wing body that monitors drone attacks, has reported that at least 2,431 people have been killed by drone bombings in Pakistan since 2004. passionislam.com
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