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From The Socialist newspaper, 4 June 2008
Nottingham: Student protests at arrests
OVER 500 students and staff demonstrated last week at Nottingham University over the arrest and threatened deportation of a member of staff, Hicham Yezza. After a lively march with home-made placards and banners, protesters held a ten-minute vigil facing the University administration offices, with their mouths taped over, protesting at the university's collusion with the police.
Pete Mason
The incident which led to the deportation threat, reported in many newspapers, was a document downloaded from an open source on the internet for a student's dissertation on contemporary terrorism. The document, an al-Qa'ida training manual, was downloaded from the US state department website, but is available from Amazon for £8.99.
Rather than checking to discover the circumstances, the university informed the police, and the student and staff member who printed out the document were arrested and held for six days before being released without charge. The staff member was then immediately re-arrested for immediate deportation, leaving no time for representation.
However by this time, the university students, who had already been protesting about the needless calling of the police and subsequent arrest of a student last year (as reported in The Socialist, 'Nottingham defends democracy', http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/3818) had organised a defence campaign. This resulted in the demonstration, addressed by local MP Alan Simpson and covered on local TV.
Alan Simpson put pressure on the Home Office over the threatened deportation of Hicham, which has been postponed, although he is at a detention centre at the time of writing.
His lawyer has applied for a judicial review, and the lecturers' union has also put pressure on the Home Office.
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In The Socialist 4 June 2008:
New Labour's failures: Don't just get angry, get Active
Environment and socialism
Editorial: Target 'ecological' taxes at the biggest polluters
Heathrow protest: Demonstrating against a third airport runway
Cosmetic measures against fuel poverty
Socialist Party workplace news
Belfast Airport workers: The long battle for justice
Come to the national shop stewards network conference
National Shop Stewards Network second conference advert
Union members reject pay insult
Socialist Party campaigns
Nottingham: Student protests at arrests
Socialist Party review
Socialist Party youth and students
London Youth Against Racism activity
National demo against racist BNP
Berlin: 8,000 school students strike
Housing crisis
Markets cannot end house building crisis
Nationalise Bradford & Bingley
Environment: Nuclear power
Nuclear power: An expensive and dangerous failure
Football
The beautiful game, with beautiful profits for some
International socialist news and analysis
Lebanon - civil war or rule by sectarian landlords
Israel: Olmert will go, but the political crisis will stick
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