Monday, Mar 22, 2004
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By Hasan Suroor
LONDON, MARCH 21. Indian students and academics have expressed concern over a newspaper report that foreign students in British universities are "routinely" spied upon by security services for suspected terrorist links. India and Pakistan are among a clutch of countries whose students are reportedly kept under surveillance by MI5 with the "willing" cooperation of universities. In a front-page report, The Sunday Telegraph claimed that under a secret operation launched by the Special Branch and MI5 after the September 11 attacks, students' emails and mobile telephone calls were being "intercepted" in an attempt to ensure that terrorists did not use universities as a cover for their activities. "A close eye is kept on students from `red flag' countries — India, Pakistan, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Israel and North Korea. Applicants from those states are vetted and asked to list their parents, previous study courses and employment. Those causing suspicion are then flagged for further monitoring," the report said. It quoted an official as saying that details of students' emails and telephone numbers were being passed by universities to security agencies and the Foreign Office. The disclosure sent a chill through the foreign student community. Indian students, reached by The Hindu , said it was "worrying" that their own institutions were spying on them and that they were suspected simply because they happened to come from a certain country. "It is a very uncomfortable feeling that someone might be reading my private emails and listening into my telephone calls without any tangible basis," said Nikhil Majithia, a post-graduate law student at Oxford University. He wanted to know what would be construed as a "suspicious" activity. "Suppose I send an email to a friend criticising the British and U.S. actions in Iraq ... does it mean that I am Al-Qaeda supporter," he asked. Arvind Sivaramakrishnan, an academic, said it was a "shame" that universities should be willing to act as a kind of police. "The whole thing, of course, is questionable under the Human Rights Act and is a threat to the freedom of academic inquiry." According to him, it had "huge" legal implications and smacked of a closet police state. The move was also attacked by the National Union of Students whose vice-president, Chris Weavers, said that there needed to be a "strong justification" for such surveillance. "Just assuming that any individual from a certain country might be a risk is utterly unrealistic." A senior Labour MP, Ian Gibson, chairman of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, described it as "absolutely against the principle of freedom in academia." He told The Sunday Telegraph that his committee had heard evidence that foreign students were being spied upon. The newspaper said that in many large universities, it was an "official" policy to have a senior academic to liaise with security services and police about students whose activities they regard as suspicious. Last year, The Hindu reported on a scheme under which scholars from India and several other countries applying for admission to certain categories of technological research are "vetted" by the Foreign Office.
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