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17 October 2009
"Prevent is Pursue in sheep's clothing."
Around
this time last year we at An-Nisa became extremely disturbed at the
government's Prevent Strategy to prevent violent extremism. The more we
uncovered what it was about the more alarmed we became.
With almost 25 years of working in the voluntary sector as a faith-based group and also having experience of working in the public sector we could see the implications of this strategy. It was clear to us that all Muslims were going to be placed under surveillance in every area of life.
We found no one prepared to listen or understand what we
were saying. We also contacted the Guardian and Liberty - they did not
respond. So we are delighted that the Guardian has today confirmed what
we are saying in a series of articles exposing the intelligence agenda
of the Prevent strategy. The Institute of Race Relations has today
also published its report on the strategy - "Spooked - How not to prevent violent extremism." See below.
Last year, despite going through a funding crisis with closure looming, we shelved all other work and spent the Christmas break researching and writing our report. We did not have the resources to publish the report and disseminate it widely. In February 2009 we put the report on our website and sent it out in an e-newsletter. Our overriding concern was to alert the community and all right minded people to the catastrophic consequences of this ill thought out strategy. We put our faith and trust in God that some good will come out of it.
The report immediately developed a life of its own and since then we have been inundated with responses from the community (including Muslim councillors and voluntary and public sector workers) and requests for information from academics/researchers, the media and even the government. This included a meeting with the Acting Head of Prevent to discuss our report. We have spent the last year focusing on promoting awareness of the strategy wherever we can.
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, has called Prevent "the biggest domestic spying programme targeting the thoughts and beliefs of the innocent in Britain in modern times," she said. "It
is information-gathering directed at the innocent and the spying is
directed at people because of their religion, and not because of their
behaviour."
There can now be little doubt that the Prevent strategy
is "Pursue in sheep's clothing' as one Muslim public sector worker put
it.
* We call upon the government to dismantle the machinery it has put in place to gather intelligence about Muslims and to be transparent and accountable as to what is being done.
* We call upon Muslims - members of the community including voluntary and public sector workers and councillors, to boycott Prevent. It is only with the co-operation of Muslims that the government can take the strategy forward.
Some of our recommendations:
*
The government should cease linking community cohesion, capacity
building, community development and addressing inequalities with PVE.
This approach risks de-legitimising much needed community building of
the Muslim community. Security measures should be separate and distinct
so that there is no doubt as to their objectives.
* Addressing
inequalities, social and economic deprivation, social exclusion and
fractured families as a common goal for all communities will be more
productive to building 'resilience' to social ills, including extremism
of any type.
* We believe the way forward is to engage
purposefully with underprivileged communities to ensure cutting-edge
services within communities to prevent grievances based on perceived
inequalities based on ethnic, religious or socio economic factors.
*
A public debate needs to be held on the crisis in our most vulnerable
communities and how we need to address this with sensible and just
policies. There is general concern nationally about young people in all
communities, the breakdown of families and fractured communities. Root
causes must be investigated and addressed.
Read more Prevent17.10.09.pdf
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An-Nisa Society Reports
Download An-Nisa Report - PVE_&_Prevent_-__A_Muslim_response.pdf
Download An-Nisa's response to Contest 2 An-Nisa_Response_Contest_2.pdf
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An-Nisa Society Prevent Inquiry Submission to Communities & Local Government Parliamentary Committee
In
August the House of Commons Communities & Local Government
Parliamentary Committee opened an Inquiry to the Prevent Strategy.
Download An-Nisa Society's submission with attached document entitled
Grassroots Voices.
An-Nisa Society Submission Download _An-Nisa_Society_PreventInquiry_Submission.Sep09.pdf
Muslim Grassroots Voices - Grassroots_Exp.Prevent.pdf
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) submission is also of interest.
Download PDF- IRR_PVE_CLG_submission
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________Government anti-terrorism strategy 'spies' on innocent
by Vikram Dodd, Guardian, 17 October 2009
"The government programme aimed at preventing Muslims from being lured into violent extremism is being used to gather intelligence about innocent people who are not suspected of involvement in terrorism, the Guardian has learned.
The information the authorities are trying to find out includes political and religious views, information on mental health, sexual activity and associates, and other sensitive information, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Other documents reveal that the intelligence and information can be stored until the people concerned reach the age of 100..." Read more
Communities fear project to counter extremism is not what it seems
Vikram Dodd, 17 October 2009,The Guardian
The public face of the Prevent programme has included a talking lion teaching schoolchildren how to spot a terrorist and even puppets taking to the streets to push the message about countering extremism.
The official publicity talks of building community resilience against terrorist extremism, and other phrases few would disagree with.
But there has been a growing suspicion among British Muslim communities that Prevent was not all that it seemed.
The programme saw money going to councils with the largest Muslim populations, with the aim of defeating Islamist violent extremism. The government and police wanted information from teachers and lecturers and others including those in the voluntary sector about terrorist activity.
Few would argue with passing on suspicions about terrorist activity. As one imam who receives funding from Prevent for a project said: "It would be a religious duty to inform."
Youth workers who are being asked to inform on youngsters they work with also said they were under an existing legal and ethical duty to report any suspicions that their clients are involved in terrorism.
The issue with Prevent is the gathering of highly sensitive information about named individuals when they are not suspected of involvement in crime.
As part of Prevent, councils have drawn up information sharing agreements (ISA) which state what data about individuals the groups they fund will share with police...Read more
View video on the Guardian website - Reaction to Prevent Programme
Spying morally right says think tank - The Guardian
Guardian Editorial on Prevent - 17 October 2009
Spooked! How not to prevent violent extremism
by Arun Kundanani, Institute of Race Relations
A report published today by the Institute of Race Relations finds that the government's Prevent programme for tackling extremism fosters division, mistrust and alienation.
ENTITLED Spooked: how not to prevent violent extremism, the report suggests that the Prevent programme has been used to establish one of the most elaborate systems of surveillance ever seen in Britain.
Moreover, there are strong reasons for thinking that the Prevent progamme, in effect, constructs the Muslim population as a 'suspect community', fosters social divisions among Muslims themselves and between Muslims and others, encourages tokenism, facilitates violations of privacy and professional norms of confidentiality, discourages local democracy and is counter-productive in reducing the risk of political violence.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________"Muslim groups hit out over 'funding with security strings attached'
Haroon Siddique - Guardian
The government is facing a rebellion over its anti-terrorism strategy from Muslim groups that claim public funding to tackle social deprivation has been made contingent on security co-operation...Read more
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"Pledge to help white working class and stop them being driven into the arms of extremism"
Steve Doughty - Daily Mail
White
working-class communities have been left behind in the race for housing
and jobs, ministers have admitted. They plan to pump millions into
predominantly white areas to help education of young people, end
benefit dependency and cut off support for far-right political groups...Read more