"Stop the Deportation of Hicham Yezza"
I imagine most readers have seen this already over at Leiter, but a student at Nottingham university is currently being deported, allegedly as a result of downloading Al-Qaeda material for legitimate research purposes.
Matters are more complex than this, but head over the website to get the full story and updates (a good full summary can be found here).
(I link to this story in part because I *very* vaguely know Hich. I once had an article published in the "Ceasefire" magazine of which he is the editor. I there argued against restrictions on free speech on the grounds that such restrictions are difficult to legislate or enforce without accidentally supressing some speech that ought to be free. Perhaps there's a parallel for academic enquiry there.)
Don't know the guy, don't
Don't know the guy, don't know the law, but your summary is blatantly false. The website you link to makes it clear he is being deported because of 'confusion' over his visas - i.e. his immigration papers are not in order - he was released without charge on the downloading issue so your 'as a result of' is an obvious misrepresentation of the facts.
The website also makes it clear that the main reason he should not be deported is because he's a nice bloke. That may be true, but I hope his lawyers can come up with something more substantial if they intend to block the order.
The "allegedly a a result
The "allegedly as a result of" locution was intended to be consistent with the fact that he is nominally being deported for something else. I also said that "matters are more complex than this", again, with the intention of conveying that this wasn't the whole story.
I could have written "is being deported as a result of having an expired visa", but this would be misleading, given that he had a date set for an immigration hearing, and that this hearing has been retracted since the arrests. That fact makes it not unreasonable to think - as it seems a Nottingham MP does - that the deportation is being rushed, and decided without fair trial, merely in order to cover for the confusion over the arrests.
Alex
My sincerest apologies, I
My sincerest apologies, I fear that you are right and I have falsely accused you through that unforgivable, though all too common, error of not reading posts properly before replying to them. In mitigation I would say that the alledged link between the downloading and the hastened deportation is rather buried, rather vague and not very convincing, but you have misled no-one and may rest assured I feel suitably chastened.
MDH
No worries - you are quite
No worries - you are quite correct that the site could be clearer on the issue.
Alex