A People-Led Review of the United Kingdom's Prevent Captures Its Abuse of Children
The People's Review of Prevent sheds light on how nefarious the United Kingdom's "countering extremism" policy really is.
đ Monthly Round-Up
Prevent: We Need to Listen to Those Harmed by UK Counter-Extremism Policy, Layla Aitlhadj â I interviewed Aitlhadj for this article. So, it only seems fitting to highlight her op-ed about Prevent and its impact on children.
Five years on, itâs time to push back against the damage caused by the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan â The Prevent Duty was passed as part of the Counterterrorism and Security Act. Read more on how it has impacted Muslim communities since 2015.
Muslims still bear the stigma of the âTrojan horseâ scandal. Maybe thatâs what was intended, Nesrine Malik â This op-ed is a reflection on a The Trojan Horse Affair, a podcast on Operation Trojan Horse. Even if you donât know about the Trojan Horse scandal, this is a good read.
In 2015, the United Kingdom passed the Prevent Duty as part of its Counterterrorism and Security Act. The policy puts a legal responsibility on those in the public sector, including schools and healthcare providers, âto prevent people from being drawn into terrorismâ and âlook out for signs of radicalisationâ. Since then, the Home Office claims Prevent has been âinstrumental in turning peopleâs lives aroundâŠand keeping our communities safeâ. But a new Peopleâs Review of Prevent rejects narratives that Prevent is saving anybody by shedding light on how nefarious the program is.
Throughout its existence, Prevent, which can be traced to 2003, has surveilled Muslims in every aspect of life. Following rising criticisms over Preventâs methodology, the Home Office announced a review of the program in Sept. 2019. Layla Aitlhadj, the Peopleâs Review co-author and director of Prevent Watch, an organization supporting those directly impacted, told NAZAR by email, âThe Prevent policy is supposed to be independently reviewed by the government in order to ensure that overreach and abuse does not take place.â
There were problems with the Home Officeâs plan from the jump. Despite labeling it an âindependentâ review, that couldnât be further from the truth. The Home Office originally appointed Lord Carlile to head the effort. In Dec. 2019, Carlile was removed after Rights Watch UK launched legal action over his past support of Prevent. Then, many were dismayed when William Shawcross was appointed to lead the long-delayed report last year.
Aitlhadj described Shawcross as âdeeply invested in counter-extremism and connected to Islamophobia networks in the UK and the US.â The Guardian reported that in 2012, while serving as director of the Henry Jackson Society, Shawcross said, âEurope and Islam is one of the greatest, most terrifying problems of our future.â And per the Peopleâs Review, Shawcross chaired the Charity Commission âbetween 2012 and 2018 when it carried out lengthy and discriminatory investigations of Muslim charitiesâ.
Following Shawcrossâs appointment, hundreds boycotted the review. In a signed statement, organizations, including the Association of Muslim Lawyers, Muslim Youth Network, and others, wrote, âNo serious, objective, critical review can be undertaken by someone with such a track record â rather we should expect [Shawcross] to promote a hardening of policies towards Muslims. So, if Muslim organisations engage with this review, it strengthens its legitimacy and its power to recommend policies more harmful to the community.â
Nobody expected the UK to facilitate a through review of its own policy from the start. But with Shawcrossâs appointment, Aitlhadj said, âEveryone agreed that we needed a different process.â Rather than wait for a report from the state, why couldnât the people draft their own review of Prevent? And it seemed that Prevent Watch was perfect to help with the task.
âWe sit on the largest resource of documented Prevent cases and we felt that our contribution to an alternative review would have to focus on the people impacted by Prevent directly, especially young people,â Aitlhadj told NAZAR. With these resources, Prevent Watch assisted in developing the Peopleâs Review which âfinally had the voices of these people rather than the voices of the pro-Prevent practitioners who benefit financially.â
Central to the Peopleâs Review is an examination of Preventâs surveillance of families as the government uses it to âforc[e] their version of what is âin the child's best interestsâ,â Aitlhadj wrote. The report honed in on Preventâs targeting of youth, especially children, stating Prevent âundermines the proper safeguarding obligations of social workers, teachers and health professionalsâ by âbringing children and young people under an extraordinarily extensive net of surveillance.â
This is achieved through several ways. For example, before a child is formally referred to a local Prevent Panel, they are interviewed by counter-terrorism officers and social workers. Because the child hasnât actually done anything and cannot be charged, the entire process operates in a nebulous pre-criminal space. It leaves children uniquely vulnerable as officers donât have to follow normal safeguards about interacting with them â like notifying a childâs guardian before interrogations.
Take Adam, an eight-year-old in a Prevent Priority Area (PPA) with a large demographic of Muslims, whose interactions with Prevent officials is detailed in the report. During school, Adam was interrogated by two counter-terrorism officers and a social worker. Per the Peopleâs Review, Adam was asked to recite the Qurâan and questioned on the verses meanings. His parents were unaware of the interrogation.
âChildren are facing questions from counter-terrorism officers with no adult present to protect them,â Aitlhadj told NAZAR. These officers, she continued, âoften ask leading questions or take statements of belief out of context.â The childrenâs services workers present tend to âtake a back seat, thus abandoning their professional and moral judgements while counter terrorism officials take the lead.â
In addition to funneling children into a pre-criminal space, Prevent operates as a form of data criminalization. The review notes that Prevent is âan abuse of individual rights to privacy and the protection of data and information held about them, especially in the case of children.â The report cites eleven-year-old Amir, a South Asian student, as an example. His school made a Prevent referral without alerting his mother. While the official who vetted the referral didnât take it any further, Amirâs information was still stored in a police database. It took a year for Amirâs mother to get his data removed.
Fundamentally, Prevent abuses children and so it has significant, lasting impacts on them. Young children, Aitlhadj said, âare fearful, mistrustful, and even traumatized by what they have been through.â Prevent Watch has recorded incidents of âbed-wetting, the development of OCD, and also greater than average mistrust of authority.â Among young adults, âstudents are certainly self-censoring in the classroom, and the unspoken pressure to only practice a certain âgoodâ Islam poses troublesome questions around identity and belonging.â
The above echoes past observations of surveillanceâs mental health impacts in the United States. Kameelah Rashad, a psychologist and founder of the Muslim Wellness Foundation, once told me for Teen Vogue, âThe constant awareness (or even suspicion) of surveillance leads many to experience increased symptoms of anxiety, depression, hyper-vigilance, fear, difficulty concentrating, denial or dissociation, and an overall pervasive sense of looming danger.â
The surveillance of children and their families by the UK â or any state â is far from new. But by invoking countering extremism, Prevent frames itself as both protecting vulnerable people and necessary for community safety. The question, of course, is which community is made safe by the traumatizing and violation of another. If, as Ayesha Siddiqi tweeted, âevery border implies the violence of its maintenanceâ, that violence is directed at the children caught within, too.
Although Prevent is UK legislation, it reverberates throughout the world. âIt is likely that the counter extremism policies in your country are influenced by the UK model,â Aitlhadj told NAZAR. âWe know that UK Prevent practitioners are actively traveling the globe to promote it as best practice.â
If Shawcross actually produces a report, it will likely make half-concessions about Preventâs flaws only to recommend reforms. But, as Aitlhadj reminded, âCE and [countering violent extremism] is a profitable industry, so it should be treated with skepticism.â While the two are âoften touted as the best means of âpreventing terrorismââ, Aitlhadj continued, âthey are used at the expense of civil liberties, dissent and the rights of children.â
Prevent doesnât need a face-lift. Even if the independent review attempts to funnel more money into it, advocates are firm on their stance. As Azfar Shafi, head researcher at CAGE, an organization working to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror, stated in the reviewâs forward: "[T]he programme must be abolished once and for all.â