| Rod Thornton | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Academic, Security expert |
| Title | Lecturer in terrorism at the University of Nottingham |
Rod Thornton is an academic at the University of Nottingham's department of Politics and International Relations. He was suspended in spring 2011 after publishing an article critical of the University of Nottingham's handling of the arrest of one of its students.
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Rod Thornton is a lecturer at the University of Nottingham's department of Politics and International Relations with research interests in terrorism and counterinsurgency. He was previously a lecturer at the Staff College at Shrivenham.[1] Thornton is the author of several books on warfare including Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the 21st Century (Polity Press, 2006) and Dimensions of Counter-Insurgency (Routledge, 2008). His research has appeared in several academic journals including Journal of Strategic Studies and International Peacekeeping. He has given evidence on counter-insurgency to the House of Commons defence committee.[2] Prior to academia, Thornton served in the British Army in Northern Ireland where he was an infantry sergeant,[3] and later more briefly with the British Army in Bosnia in early 1990s where he served as a military interpreter, having been recalled at his own request as a reservist with a knowledge of Serbo-Croat, which he had studied with Russian as part of a BA degree at the University of Nottingham.
In 2011 Thornton was the subject of a controversy over academic freedom when he was suspended from the University of Nottingham after publishing an article critical of the University of Nottingham's handling of the arrest of one of its students on terrorism charges. (See Nottingham Two).[4] Thornton's paper titled "Radicalisation at Universities or radicalisation by Universities?: How a student's use of a library book became 'a major Islamist plot'" was submitted for a conference on terrorism held by the British International Studies Association at the University of Manchester and dealt with the case of Rizwaan Sabir who was arrested after being found in possession of several academic works available from the University library along with a digital copy of the Al-Qaeda Training Manual downloaded onto a University computer from a United States Department of Justice web site.[5] Among the assertions made in the paper is the allegation that Sabir was monitored by senior management and his marks lowered so he could not move on to a PhD. Numerous documents suggested a systematic attempt to smear the character of Mr Yezza and Mr Sabir in order to justify the decision to call the police. Pages from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia concerning the case were also altered by individuals within the University.[6] The paper was removed from the BISA website,[7] despite this the 112-page article is freely available to view online. Later BISA published an open letter expressing “a strong feeling of unease and concern” among members over the question of academic freedom raised by Dr Thornton’s case and called for an independent inquiry into the affair.[8] In response to the controversy a spokesperson for the University stated that the paper contains "clearly defamatory" material about several members of University staff.[4][9] Dr. Thornton's paper, however, shows that he was careful to meet the requirements of the Public Interest Disclosures Act which is designed to protect whistle-blowers. Commenting on Dr. Thornton's case Cathy James, chief executive of the pro-whistleblowing charity Public Concern at Work, emphasized: "It's really important that whistleblowers are supported."[10] Despite this senior management at the Nottingham University, maintained the suspension of Dr. Thornton.[11]
On June 15th the pressure group SWAN (Support the Whistleblower at Nottingham) in association with Unileaks published all of the internal and government documents referred in Dr. Thornton's paper. An exclusive was given to the Observer which also revealed that students involved in activites related to the Palestine and the Middle East were being monitored and secretly filmed by the University.[12] Dr. Thronton had claimed in his paper that Middle Eastern themed events and protests had been suffered discriminatory treatment despite their peaceful nature. A video subsequently emerged supporting this claim, soon after another surfaced showing security members destroying a Gaza memorial. Dr. Thornton's paper also claimed the University of being anti-Palestinian citing the attempt by senior management to host the Israeli Ambassador for a 'public' talk without informing the student population. Later a letter signed by 167 staff, students and almuni appeared in the Observer supporting the claims made by Dr. Thornton.[13] They went on to say that "The arrests of two university members, Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir, in 2008 were not isolated incidents but, in our view, indicate an institutional culture of intolerance within university senior management."
In May 2011, The Guardian newspaper published a letter of support signed by 67 academics from around the world, including Noam Chomsky. This letter called for Thornton's reinstatement and an independent inquiry into his treatment by Nottingham University.[14]