What is PREVENT?
The PREVENT Strategy is a Government initiative led by the Home Office and used to target the Muslim Community. The new strategy has altered from its previous version called “PVE – Prevent Violent Extremism” since the Government has now gone beyond looking only at violence and terrorism.
Isn’t PREVENT a good thing?
No. Apart from dealing with violent plots which is part of what the Police have always tackled, this PREVENT Strategy goes further. Many cases have shown that ordinary Muslims are now being targeted. Muslims have been unfairly targeted and entire cases have been built on stacks of circumstantial evidence to prove a “mindset”. Hence some Muslims have gone to prison for the Islamic views that they have, going camping, wearing combat style clothes sold in the High Street, owning Islamic books, selling books that were also available on amazon.com (and they were even properly catalogued in the British Library!), watching DVD’s or YouTube videos, going onto certain websites. These things have been used against Muslims who did not harm anyone and were not actually involved in plotting terrorist attacks.
But don’t they tell us this is necessary to stop Terrorism?
This is the story that is being spun. However innocent Muslims are now victims of these policies and the entire Muslim Community is being targeted. Just because a Muslim goes on websites, watches videos, or read books that the Government is not supportive of does not mean that they will become terrorists. Only Muslims are targeted, which means that non-Muslim citizens can do these activities, but if a Muslim were to do the same thing they may get arrested.
Isn’t this prejudice and discrimination?
Well yes it is. There are clearly individuals in Government and within the Police and Security Services that seek to practice these policies in this very discriminative, unhelpful, and counter-productive manner. So the Muslim Community needs to be aware of the above and remain vigilant of people trying to take our lives as normal Muslims and trying to make it out to be something else. We need to look out for Police Community Support Officers, Community Workers, Teachers, Lecturers, Social Workers, and even Doctors. All of these are being trained to some degree to gather local intelligence and target Muslims. Look out for them making conversation or trying to listen-in to you talking about your religious or political views. This does not mean you should never talk about your views but just to be vigilant and apply your discretion when these people try to probe for information in the course of their work routines.
But how can they get away with it?
This is the complicated part. Unfortunately organisations like the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) cast the net as wide as possible when the law was only meant to deal with terror plots (we don’t know the real reason for sure, perhaps they are securing their jobs for life). So they are using the law against people who do not seek to harm anyone and it’s always Muslims who seem to be the target. Campaign groups like Cageprisoners are working hard as are the solicitors who are still working on cases similar to these, as more cases are won then the precedent for future cases are set (as the terror laws are still relatively new). Unfortunately some Muslims end up in prison for months sometimes over a year awaiting trial. For obvious reasons the distress of prison affects a person’s life and in certain cases the CPS offers them plea-bargains i.e. “plead guilty for certain charges and the 12-18 months you’ve already served will mean you can go free or you will be freed very shortly”. So rather than see that justice is served, the CPS tries to get a high quantity of guilty pleas without testing the evidence purely in order to boost its statistics. Meanwhile the Muslims who are placed under the duress of imprisonment get a criminal record. Either way their lives get disrupted and they have to start over.
Who else works for PREVENT?
Organisations and individuals can work with PREVENT and obtain PREVENT funding. In 2009 the Tax Payers Alliance managed to list organisations and individuals who were recipients of PREVENT funding throughout the UK by making Freedom of Information Act requests to Local Councils and the Home Office. Others have also done similar requests since 2009. Recently Bayyina Foundation’s research team requested up-to-date information from Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council on who is receiving funding and how much. To our surprise the council refused to give specific information about which organisations receive PREVENT funding despite an internal review of the request all of which can be viewed at http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/prevent_programme_31
The matter has now been forwarded to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) to deal with. It appears that Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council does not have the decency to allow the Muslim Community to have this information in order to exercise a fundamental right to choose who they do and do not associate and work with. The Council stated: “it is the opinion of the Council that any information identifying the focus of anti-extremist activity could be used to the advantage of terrorists or criminal organisations. Information that undermines the operational integrity of these activities will adversely affect public safety and have a negative impact on both National security and law enforcement.” We noted how in 2009 it had no problem releasing the data to the Tax Payers Alliance when PREVENT was solely focused on violence. But now PREVENT has moved onto ideas, viewpoints, and mindsets, the Council is concerned about Terrorism?
This is a matter of freedom of association, if Muslims do not wish to associate and work with organisation who are funded by PREVENT we have the right not to, equally if we wish to associate ourselves with such organisations then we would still need the necessary information to make the informed choice. It appears that the Council is not concerned with fostering good community relations and neither is it ignorant regarding this when it stated: “disclosing the names of organisations that receive funding would be very likely to prejudice their future involvement in the PREVENT programme. In many cases, those organisations involved in the PREVENT activities do so anonymously specifically to avoid community reprisal.”
Why community reprisal? Are they working against the community? How many ‘reprisals’ were there in 2009? Or was that different because they gave out the data to non-Muslims at a time when PREVENT was only concerned with violence?
We would say it is to undermine the freedoms of the community and the council does not wish the community to have an informed freedom of association. We will let readers make up their own minds.
So what can we do?
Work collectively in the community, join the campaigns that highlight these cases, and importantly do not be intimidated and carry on as usual. Remember the PREVENT Strategy is not the law; it is an initiative of the Home Office. Therefore it is not illegal to undermine PREVENT and to stop cooperating with their initiatives. If the CPS is trying to say regular activities without a terror plot are illegal, we must turn around and make it known that it is not, citing quashed convictions by the Court of Appeal. This is important to note, cases are on-going and many are being overturned on appeal such as the recent Ahmad Faraz case.
We also need to assert our Islamic Identity and promote Islam as it is. We are not going to change Islam because others start undermining Islam using the “extreme” label for things like; homosexuality, adultery, and fornication being forbidden, or that there are indeed capital punishments in Islam, or Islamic dress codes for women (as well as men), or that Islam has a socio-political and economic system run by “Shari’ah”, and importantly that Islam was best practiced by the Prophet Muhammad(saw) and His Companions(ra), they are our examples in the 21st century or any other century for that matter. Islamic Law may not be the prevailing system in the UK, but that does not mean forgetting our principles, our way of life, or acting like Islam has no relevance.
Finally do not forget our Muslim brothers and sisters all over the world. Our efforts should also be focused on the campaigns against state-terrorism so we need to do what we can to PREVENT Violent and Extreme Foreign Policies in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and every other land under the subjugation of the imperialists nations.
Editorial Team
Bayyina Foundation
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