Student arrested after studying terrorism

A student at Nottingham University was arrested as a result of his research into terrorism, it has been claimed.

According to Times Higher Education, the masters student, who was arrested on May 14 and held in custody for six days, was researching terrorism for his dissertation.

Rizwaan Sabir, 22, downloaded an edited version of the al-Qaeda handbook from a US government website, Sabir’s lawyer told Times Higher Education.

The student was arrested along with a member of staff to whom he sent the manual, and a warrant for further detention was given after they had been in custody for 48 hours.

The incident has raised fears over the level of academic freedom within universities. The student’s personal tutor, Bettina Renz, told the BBC:

"I was absolutely shocked at the severity of the reaction. I would never have thought that, by downloading something that's available on a public, official government website, it would lead to a response like this.

"It is really very worrying because I conduct research into terrorism myself and this could happen to anybody and that's very difficult for us in terms of academic freedom to do our jobs."

Despite the concerns of academics and many students, who have created a petition calling on Nottingham University to preserve their academic freedom, the University maintains that students have the right to study freely.