Terrorism and UK Academia: Police Give £20,000 and Apology to Wrongly-Arrested Student

University of NottinghamFor more than three years, EA and its predecessor, Libertas, have followed the case of two men punished by the University of Nottingham and British authorities. The "crime"? Downloading a publicly-available Al Qa'eda training manual, as part of a postgraduate student's research on terrorism, onto a computer.

Hicham Yezza, an administrator at the university, and Rizwaan Sabir were arrested in May 2008. Sabir was released after seven days and eventually completed his Master's degree. He then moved to the University of Strathclyde in Scotland for his Ph.D. research. Yezza was not brought to trial but was held for months in a detention centre under threat of deportation before he was finally freed.

Sam Jones of The Guardian brings the latest development in the case. Readers might note that, in contrast to the compensation given by the police to Sabir, the University of Nottingham, which continued to secretly film Islamic students on campus, has never offered a word of apology to the student or to Yezza.

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A student who was arrested and held for seven days after downloading the al-Qaida training manual as part of his university research into terrorist tactics has received £20,000 in compensation and an apology from the police for being stopped and searched.

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Libya Special: A Guide to The New Political Landscape (Hussain)

The Guardian's Ghaffar Hussain attempts to answer the question on many people's minds this week - After Qaddafi, and after the National Transitional Council, what happens next in Libya? He then gives a provocative subtitle:

"A post-Gaddafi Libya will see liberals, Islamists and secularists jostling for position with the largest grouping: nationalists"

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The ousting of the Gaddafi clan and the collapse of their jamahiriya system, has left many feeling unsure about Libya's political future. After all, the National Transitional Council (NTC) is not a political party and won't exist beyond the first elections. Many of its members, being having been officials in Gaddafi's regime, are unlikely to seek executive political positions.

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Syria Document: New Leader of the Opposition Ghalioun "We Must Act Swiftly and Decisively"

It is paramount that we act swiftly and decisively to erode and completely isolate the Syrian regime --- until it is compelled to lay down the tools of excessive violence it is using against the peaceful protesters and opens up serious channels of negotiation under Arab or international auspices. This must be done with a view to abandoning the current formula for rule that is predicated on the monopolisation of power, corruption and a brutal security apparatus. It must be done with a view to moving towards a multiparty democratic system that guarantees the rights of all Syrians and ensures their freedoms and the future of their children.

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Libya Snapshot: The Last Appeals of the Qaddafi Regime to the US (Dehghan)

The Qaddafi regime carried out an extraordinary clandestine lobbying operation to try to stop NATO's bombardment of Libya, and believed the western allies were likely to launch a full-scale invasion in "either late September or October".

Secret documents in Tripoli seen by The Guardian reveal the desperate attempts made by the Libyan government in its final months to influence US and world opinion. It approached key international opinion formers from the US president Barack Obama downwards.

The regime tried to persuade the Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich --- a well-known rebel who voted against NATO military action in Libya, and opposed the Iraq war --- to visit Tripoli as part of a hastily arranged "peace mission". The Libyan government offered to pay all Kucinich's costs related to the trip, including "travel expenses and accommodation".

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Britain Follow-Up: Unrest Brings Longer Sentences, Surging Imprisonment (Travis/Rogers)

The courts are handing down prison sentences to convicted rioters that are on average 25% longer than normal, according to an exclusive Guardian analysis of 1,000 riot-related cases dealt with so far by magistrates.

The data proves for the first time that the handful of high-profile individual cases – including a four-year sentence for inciting disorder on Facebook – are indicative of a more punitive general trend.

This unprecedented access to national court results reveals that 70% of defendants have been remanded in custody to await crown court trial, fuelling a surge in the prison population, which reached a record high of 86,608 in England and Wales.

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Britain Latest: Quieter in London but Trouble Elsewhere (The Guardian)

UPDATE 0640 GMT: We have followed claims overnight that at least two men, reportedly defending their neighbourhood amidst unrest, were killed in north Birmingham when they were hit by a car.

The BBC now reports that police have begun a murder inquiry. A third man was critically injured in the incident.

Video taken by frightened foreign students in Birmingham

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Central Manchester and Salford saw serious looting and disorder as gangs waged running battles with police, ransacking dozens of shops. Similar, if less widespread, trouble flared in Birmingham and elsewhere in the West Midlands.

The most serious disorder came in Manchester. Groups of young people consistently evaded police attempts to stop them from the late afternoon onwards, breaking into a series of upmarket shops and setting a branch of the Miss Selfridge clothing chain ablaze. As evening fell, up to 200 youths raided an off-licence and other shops in the main shopping precinct of Salford, a couple of miles to the west.

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Britain Latest: The Third Day of Unrest Spreads Across --- and Outside --- London (Dodd/Davies)

UPDATE 1355 GMT: A photograph from Clapham Junction in south London as residents vow to clean up the debris from last night's unrest:

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Looting in Clapham Junction, south London, on Monday night: "We're getting our taxes back"

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The prime minister cut short his holiday and flew back to Britain as London witnessed devastating scenes of violence stretching the emergency services beyond limit on a third night of rioting in the capital.

Buildings were torched, shops ransacked, and officers attacked with makeshift missiles and petrol bombs as gangs of hooded and masked youths laid waste to streets right across the city.

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Syria 1st-Hand: An Interrogation (Yazbek)

Two huge men entered the room. They stood in readiness, in plainclothes. One of them stood to the right and the other to the left. With a signal from his eyes, each seized me by the shoulders, though not roughly. They seized me as if I were some object, easy for them to move. I did not resist when they started to lift me out of my chair. I even stood up, surprised at what was happening. Would they finally arrest me, putting this nightmare to an end? One gave the officer a jaunty look, and I looked at him not knowing what was next. I tried to read some good news in their eyes, body movements and demeanour. He was neutral, looking at some spot in the room. The two of them put a band of cloth over my eyes. Moments later, I was blindfolded, and noticed a strange smell from the cloth. A strong arm seized me, an arm sure of its grasp of my elbow, of its push and pull. Then I straightened up and shouted, "Where are you taking me?"

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War on Terror Special: How British Policy Endorsed Overseas Torture (Cobain)

Photo: Mark Wilson (Getty)A top-secret document revealing how MI6 and MI5 officers were allowed to extract information from prisoners being illegally tortured overseas has been seen by the Guardian.

The interrogation policy --- details of which are believed to be too sensitive to be publicly released at the government inquiry into the UK's role in torture and rendition --- instructed senior intelligence officers to weigh the importance of the information being sought against the amount of pain they expected a prisoner to suffer. It was operated by the British government for almost a decade.

A copy of the secret policy showed senior intelligence officers and ministers feared the British public could be at greater risk of a terrorist attack if Islamists became aware of its existence.

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Syria Video and Analysis: Who Killed These Men and Where is the River Where They Were Dumped?

Warning: GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING IMAGES

The video was uploaded on 31 July. The Arabic caption reads: "Is there any crime worse than killing someone and then throwing the body in the river? Where are human rights? Where is world opinion? Where is Amnesty International?" There is no way to properly verify the clip.

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