By IRNA,
London : Lecturers and students at Nottingham University in central England are protesting against the sudden decision to deport an Algerian staff member after his mistaken arrest under Britain’s terror laws.
Local Labour MP Alan Simpson has also written to Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, saying there was “no other reason for an emergency deportation of Mr Hicham Yessa other than to cover the embarrassment of Police and Intelligence services.”
Yezza, a former PhD student at the university, was arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 with graduate Rizwaan Sabir over the possession of extremist material on May 16, but both were released six days later without charge.
It subsequently became clear that the so-called “radical materials” involved an Al Qaeda manual downloaded by Sabir as part of his research into political Islam and emailed to Yezza for printing.
The Algerian, who has been resident in the UK for 13 years, was in the process of applying for British citizenship, but Simpson said he was “shocked to discover” that he could be deported from Britain as early as Tuesday.
“It seems to me that this follows a clumsy response, under anti terrorism legislation to the incident at Nottingham University,” he said in his letter to the immigration minister.
The Labour MP said Yessa and his solicitors should be allowed far more than Monday’s bank holiday to make the case for his continued presence in the UK.
“To race him out of the country will only provoke widespread protests against an arbitrary deportation with no right to a proper hearing,” he said.
Matthew Butcher, member of Students Union Executive, said it was “an abhorrent abuse of due process, pursued by a government” and following the “debacle of the initial ‘terror’ arrests they now want to brush the whole affair under the carpet by deporting Hicham.” “The Home Office operates with a Gestapo mentality. They have no respect for human dignity and human life. They treat foreign nationals as disposable goods – the recklessness and the cavalier approach they have belongs to a totalitarian state,” Butcher said.
Students are joining with academics in launching a petition aiming to deeply embarrass the government into reviewing Yessa’s case.
The arrests, understood to be the first since the government issued guidelines to universities to effectively target and spy on Muslim students and Islamic groups, has already provoked outrage on the campus concerned with academic freedom.