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Muslim Student Questioned over Library UseA Muslim PhD candidate at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, was questioned July 21 about his reading material by an Australian Federal Police officer who came to the student’s home. The officer asked why the student, identified only as Abraham, was interested in books about terrorism, some of which he had bought and some of which he had borrowed from the library.The books were on the university’s recommended reading list for students majoring in politics with a concentration in martyrdom and terrorism, Abraham said in a July 26 radio interview aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). He added, “My studies were involved in obviously preventing these actions from occurring and they’re drawing a linkage with that and saying okay, well, you might be a terrorist.” The incident has led Abraham’s professor, anti-terrorism expert David Wright-Neville, to warn 200 students in his terrorism studies course that government intelligence might monitor them. “These books were not bought under the counter in a brown paper bag. [Abraham] was drawing on mainstream research and scholars,” Wright-Neville said in the July 26 Melbourne Age. “Students have a right to go about their studies and their research without that sort of interference into their private affairs,” Wright-Neville told ABC radio, adding that law enforcement needs to trust that the Monash University community “would obviously work cooperatively with the authorities” if they were suspicious about any student. Posted July 29, 2005. |
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