Russia: Nuclear scientist on the loose in "spy swap"

Dr. Igor Stygian (photo), a Russian nuclear scientist and former head of department at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, was released from prison on 9 July.

According to reports from the BBC, Stygian was delivered to Britain as one of a number of individuals convicted of spying in Russia exchanged with 10-11 individuals by the US alleged Russian spies.

Stygian was arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service in October 1999 charged with espionage and sentenced to 15 years in a strict-regime penal colony, in a case that advocates human rights apparently politically motivated and part of a widespread clampdown on freedom to be of expression in Russia.

Stygian was accused of passing classified information to a London-based research firm for whom he was conducting freelance analysis of civil-military relations in Russia.

Stygian has always maintained that he was just a public sources of information and as a civilian researcher has no access to classified sources.

His case has been identified as that of a political prisoner by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which also claimed Sustains trial did not meet international standards.

Israel Academics fight for the freedom to dissent

More than 500 Israeli academics, including two former ministers education, a protest against the new laws petition, backed by the government of Benjamin Chaitanya, Israeli academics who openly support an academic boycott of signed Israeli institutions criminalize, the Guardian reported on 11 July.

Iran: Campaign to free imprisoned student photographer

More than 70 Iranian graduates have started a campaign for the release of their friend and colleague, photographer Hammed Saber student, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty, reported launched last month. Saber was arrested on June 21 and there was no communication about his whereabouts not.

It is thought his arrest was in response to pictures that he took of protests after the disputed presidential election last year. She posted on the websites photo-sharing Flicker and Picasso under his own name, was allegedly published in foreign media, including the cover of the German magazine Deer Spiel.

Saber was a prolific photographer, and also design software users enabled the filters that countries such as Iran, the United Arab Emirates, China and others on Flicker placed bypass.

He also posted online photos of the moment in prison Oxford student Mohamed Jalapeno, as well as a few hundred of the Iranian protesters.

In a statement on WWW.freeholder.blog spot.com, a group of his university classmates and professors say that Saber chose not to emigrate despite the opportunity, because he wanted to work on Iran's freedom.

Iran: Detention of student amalgamation leaders

Two members of the Central Council of Adverb e Talkie Vanda, a representative body of Islamic student associations in Iran, was arrested by Iranian security forces, Adverb News reported on 22 August.

Hassan Aside Zebadiah was arrested at his home by security forces and Ali Jamal was arrested at work. No information on the reason for their arrests.

Both individuals had previously faced prosecution for their involvement in student politics.

  Zebadiah detained in September 2009 and released on bail after 40 days in captivity. Jamaal regularly summoned to security agencies and had received threats in recent weeks.

Students in an Islamic Society, the main pro-democracy student groups in Iran universities.

Three members of Adverb e Talkie Vanda is currently in prison: Ahmad Zebadiah, secretary; Abdul Moment, speaker; and Ali Malachi, head of public relations.

Iran: Student leader moved to hunger strike

An Iranian student leader, described as "one of the most prominent symbols of struggling student movement Iran's" was moved from Even prison Maharajahs without his family or lawyer told Radio Free Europe reported on August 18.

UK: Demanding ruling mantras of higher education

There is a special kind of British humor that is very good at finding the absurd in everyday life. It draws our attention to much of what we take for granted only by the tone or raising an eyebrow. One of these may be enough to effectively place afraid quotes around a cliche be; or draw our attention to something critical, and we laugh at the absurdity of a sudden that once seemed authoritative.

Professor Robin Briggs of All Souls College, Oxford University, is a master of this very British combination of comedy and criticism.

In South Africa, the TB Davie Academic Freedom Lecture at the University of Cape Town, it was with shining eyes, he intoned the ruling mantras past usually for sanity in the global higher education policy.

He began his lecture by repeating the words of the former British Minister of Education David Blanket: ". Higher education generates the research, knowledge and skills to support innovation and change in the economy and the wider community"

This statement suggested Briggs was "blameless enough" unless - and here he paused with the timing necessary to all comedy - "unless you're allergic to truisms is".

JORDAN: Student incarcerated for writing poem

A student at the University Ibid in Jordan is accused of lees majesty and "causing national strife" on a poem he denies wrote that criticized the King, Human Rights Watch reported on 3 September 2010 Hakim AL-Shula was arrested his university on July 25, after pamphlets of the poem under his name spread around campus.

Al-Shula, who claimed he only knew of the leaflets after he was informed by friends, phoned the police after he confronted by three fellow students about the poem, and all four were arrested. Al-Shula lived since July 29 in per-trial detention in Balsa 'prison and the military prosecutor refused his application for bail.

Jordan is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the right to freedom of expression includes. Despite this, Jordan law states that anyone convicted insulting the King to be jailed for between one and three years, and there are several other laws freedom of expression.

Since King Abdul dissolved parliament in November 2009, the government has many 'temporary' laws without parliamentary approval.

Ukraine: Take into custody of historian research activities

Historian Russian Ability was arrested by the Ukrainian Security Service, the SUB, allegedly on the basis of his research in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Ukraine's independence movement in the 1940s and 1950s, the Ky iv Post reported on 17 September.

Ability, head of Lvov National Memorial Museum of Victims of the Occupation Regimes, Thurman to Longhorn, was arrested on 8 September 2010 and held for 14 hours after his laptop and two external hard drives seized.

The SUB claims that Ability illegally collect state secrets with the intent to distribute them.

More than 100 academics worldwide a petition for the release of Ability and expressing their concern about access to information in the Ukrainian system of higher education signed.

The petition states that "if we share views Russian Ability or not, we consider it absolutely inadmissible for harassing a security service to researchers and hamper intellectual activities ... we believe that the decision of scientific disputes depends on the free flow of ideas and free access to historical sources, no matter how controversial they may be. "

In the last years of his presidency Victor Yevtushenko decided to secret documents in Ukraine's archives, which came under the jurisdiction of the security services, be declassified.

There is concern that access to the archives to a halt under the leadership of the current president, Victor Yanukovych comes.

"A free society requires an honest discussion about the past, which is only possible when access to archives is allowed," said Timothy Snyder, a well-known history professor from Yale University with extensive experience in Eastern Europe.

USA: California university transparency bill veto

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill that would require foundations and other aid groups tied to California's largest university, California State University and the University of California, to their list of donors to the public voiced open veto, Inside Higher Education reported on 1 October.

Schwarzenegger said the bill would not "sufficient protection for many who rightfully deserve a level of privacy as part of their giving." The University of California and California State University claimed that the bill a "chilling effect" would have on private donations.

The bill by Senator Leland See, a proposal for a regular critic of the university management and spending practices, amid a controversy regarding the refusal of a foundation linked to the California State University the amount spent it to Sarah Plain speaks to bring to the campus public.

The bill would institutions subsidiary organizations subject to public supervision by the California Public Records Act made. See claimed that these subsidiaries allows state universities to hide billions of dollars.

He said that "for a governor who wanted to blow up the boxes and whose rhetoric is filled with platitudes of open government, it is a disgrace and completely hypocritical than legislative veto real transparency and accountability to our public universities spend".