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British Library Declines to Host Taliban Documents, Citing UK Terrorism Act

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 01 2015, @06:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the learn-from-history-or-be-doomed-to-repeat-it dept.

shortscreen writes:

For two years, academics worked to digitize and translate a collection of Taliban documents as part of the Taliban Sources Project (page currently appears to be down, but exists in Google's cache). As the project comes to a close, they've sought an institution to make the digital archive available to researchers around the world. However, the British Library, after reviewing a catalogue of titles, declined to host the documents. Their statement noted that“The Terrorism Act places specific responsibilities on anyone in the UK who might provide access to terrorist publications, and the legal advice received jointly by the British Library and other similar institutions advises against making this type of material accessible.”

[Ed. note] I've had a report that it is available on Bing's cache.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Tuesday September 01 2015, @07:18PM

    by zocalo (302) on Tuesday September 01 2015, @07:18PM (#230949)
    How people feel about the Taliban ought to be moot in this decision. These are still historical documents by which future generations will judge the Taliban so they ought to be archived in places like the British Library, if only to serve as a datum in the argument that history is written by the victors; "this is what they wrote, so judge for yourself whether the official record is accurate or not!" If some of the content is considered to be of a "sensitive" nature by some UK government legislation then it would be better to get them to identify the bits they have issues with and have redacted versions available to the general public with the full versions in a restricted access section that requires a researcher to apply for a login that requires a basic background check if it makes people happier. It's not like the content isn't going to be available via other sources anyway, sooner or later.

    Food for thought; if the British Library, Universities, and similar institutions had been enforcing this policy since they were founded, just how many "sensitive", "heretical" and similar documents might otherwise have been lost? We look down on Daesh for their wanton destruction of historical structures and writings that don't fit their world view, but is refusing to preserve things (the very reason institutions like the British Library exist in the first place) that are inconvient to our world view any different?
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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:53PM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:53PM (#230982) Journal

    How people feel about the Taliban ought to be moot in this decision.

    I'm pretty sure how people feel about the Taliban is NOT part of the decision.

    The decision is about the LAW regarding providing recruitment materials of a terrorist organization.

    If the library could hold the materials for study, and at the same time restrict access to prevent "some people" from accessing them, they might be able to serve the academic needs. But baring that, and the running battles that would entail from policing such a policy, its easier to simply claim they will not have these materials in their library.

    (By the way, almost every academic library I've ever frequented had "secret" collections, open only to certain post grad students.) They weren't really secret, we just called them that. It was strictly white gloves room access only.

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    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday September 01 2015, @09:15PM

      by Zz9zZ (1348) on Tuesday September 01 2015, @09:15PM (#230990)

      Education has always been the proper response to crazy ideas. Censorship has always proven worse, creating ideological martyrs. I'm all for an annoyance gate to access, but a law about providing recruitment materials is a ridiculous argument. They would not be promoting the Taliban, and I'm sure anyone interested in the recruitment process would go looking elsewhere for information.

      Once a society starts censoring ideas it only gives those ideas more power. They should not be afraid of such documents, they should create annotated versions highlighting all the batshit crazy.

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    • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday September 01 2015, @09:43PM

      by zocalo (302) on Tuesday September 01 2015, @09:43PM (#230998)
      That was actually targetted more at Runaway1956 rather than the British Library's legal advice.
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