Censorship of research in the USA: Iranians not allowed to publish papers

Jill Walker reports about censorship of research in the USA:

Recently, two articles by teams from the University of Bergen were accepted by prominent US journals and then turned down because, the publishers said, "we cannot publish your paper because the United States government restricts publishers from publishing papers that have an affiliation with the government of Iran." Some of the authors were Iranian citizens.

She comments:

Isn’t that astounding, though? The results results are presumably important, since they were accepted in an internationally reknowned, peer reviewed journal. They have nothing to do with bombs or weapons of mass destruction or politics - this is geology and oil and such. And yet the US government refuses to allow US journals to publish this, just because some of the authors - scholars, not politicians - have Iranian passports? How peculiar that the country that (in theory) has the strongest tradition of freedom of speech and democracy stifles research and communication like this.

>> read the whole post and the comments

The rector of Bergen University said to the Norwegian media that this was "unacceptable political censorship", "previously known only from totalitarian regimes". Matthias Kaiser from the National Committees for Research Ethics in Norway says, the American science community can no longer be regarded as a part of the international science community.

There's no English language coverage available,

>> information from the University in Bergen on this issue

>> information on the Patriot Act which is the reason of this problems

A few weeks ago, the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the world's largest association of scholars of religion, criticized a similar "ideological exclusion" of knowlewdge and scholars. They joined a lawsuit that challenges a key provision of the USA Patriot Act, according to the blog Mirror of Justice:

Citing the 2004 revocation of a travel visa for noted Swiss scholar of Islam Tariq Ramadan, the suit contends that an "ideological exclusion" provision of the Patriot Act is being used to impede the free circulation of scholars and scholarly debate that are integral to academic freedom.

Commenting on the suit, AAR Executive Director Barbara DeConcini stated that "preventing foreign scholars like Professor Ramadan from visiting the U.S. limits not only the ability of scholars here to enhance their own knowledge, but also their ability to inform students, journalists, public policy makers, and other members of the public who rely on scholars' work to acquire a better understanding of critical current issues involving religion.

>> read the whole post "Religion Scholars Challenge Patriot Act"

>> AlterNet: Banned in America: Tariq Ramadan of Switzerland, one of the world's most important Muslim scholars, ran right into the USA Patriot Act

>> "War on terror": CIA sponsers anthropologists to gather sensitive information

>> News on Patriot Act and Academic Freedom

>> The Patriot Act and Civil Liberties. Information and Resources