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The first-year law student too afraid to pick human rights law as a module at university. The student officer told to hand over a list of members of the Islamic society. One thing binds these together: the Prevent duty. This week the Guardian revealed that counter-terror police across the UK have been running a secret centralised database containing the details of the thousands of individuals who have been referred to Prevent, the government’s counter-radicalisation programme. Many of them, on the government’s own terms, were unworthy of referral – but fell victim to an increasing climate of suspicion.
Prevent was launched in 2003 by the then Labour government with the supposed purpose of supporting people vulnerable to radicalisation and diverting them from terrorism before they offend. In 2015 a statutory duty was placed on schools, NHS trusts, prisons and local authorities to report concerns about people they believe to be at risk. The coalition government extended its remit in 2011 – and in 2015, a statutory duty was placed on schools, NHS trusts, prisons and local authorities to report concerns about what they believe to be at risk individuals. The whole programme has been criticised since its inception,but the mounting pile of evidence of its failure has led the government to concede to a review, which is now under way.
While some may be shocked by the existence of the undercover database, these tactics will be all too familiar to those who have researched and continue to campaign against Prevent. It has gone through many guises since 2003, but whatever rhetoric it couches itself in, Prevent continues to inflict harm on the lives of individuals and create an environment which weakens political participation and threatens any form of dissent.
During my time at the National Union of Students, working with Saffa Mir of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, the women’s officer Hareem Ghani and I found that one in three Muslim students felt negatively affected by the Prevent duty. Students admitted to me that they avoided picking modules where they would have to engage in topics such as human rights and counter-terrorism, out of fear of being referred to Prevent. Equally they were worried about expressing opinions on anything from increasing racism in the UK to the legality of the Iraq war. This anxiety was especially heightened for students of colour and Muslim students. This year’s NUS black students’ officer, Fope Olaleye, reiterated this, telling me: “Prevent has never been about safeguarding students, but targeting the most vulnerable, and making them fearful in spaces of learning and education.”
Students’ fear is not unfounded. I’ve seen student campaigning societies have events shut down, stifled or surveilled, with members investigated by local Prevent officers. This especially applies to societies campaigning on issues like Palestine and the Fossil Free movement, which scrutinises institutional investments. Many believe universities are using the tools available to them through Prevent to clamp down on student groups. I’ve also spoken to students who have had knocks on the doors of their accommodation to be interrogated about their friends, and heard from academics who were worried about putting in research bids on certain political topics. This all allows the malign impact of Prevent to thrive.
On the same day the government should have been apologising for the discovery of this database, the Commission for Countering Extremism released the Challenging Hateful Extremism report, which grotesquely denies the reality of the Prevent duty. According to the report, those tasked with “countering extremism” are the real victims of “harassment”, while those communities battered into fear, silence and suspicion by such programmes are left as collateral damage. Through this process, marginalised communities are first harassed by the might of the state, then targeted by counter-extremism if they challenge the process, and finally smeared as “abusive” for speaking out in defence of their communities.
Government figures show many individuals referred to Prevent are later assigned to “appropriate” welfare programmes. This only underscores just how insidiously Prevent has permeated almost all welfare structures in the UK, creating top-down state surveillance. Prevent is implemented everywhere from primary schools, where spelling mistakes have allegedly led Muslim children to receive visits from the police instead of corrections in red ink; to the NHS, where staff have reported they would make Prevent queries for patients who were critical of foreign policy. Nurses, doctors, teachers and many more are being forced into amateur detective work – at a time when the services they provide in our welfare state are being aggressively cut by the government.
In these contexts, many people remain under the threatening gaze of Prevent – with their details stored on an extensive central database without their knowledge.
Prevent is not a single policy, it is a defining issue of our time and intimately connected with the struggle to save the welfare state. The bedrock of care that our NHS was founded on is being eroded when its staff are no longer able to just treat their patients – but are being made to check their passports and monitor their political opinions. And Prevent, meanwhile, alongside counter-extremism more broadly, is increasingly becoming the first point of call for repressing any movements that dare to tackle contemporary issues.
Calls have been made to categorise Extinction Rebellion’s climate crisis protests as “extremist”, and “extremism” is being used as a pretence for granting unprecedented state control over the internet through the online harms white paper. Meanwhile, the terror charges against the Stansted 15 were a sign of a state increasingly shifting towards the criminalisation of any dissenting behaviour – with Prevent being at its heart.
This is why such a database cannot be allowed to continue to be accessed: documenting aspects of everyday people’s lives is an infringement of our civil liberties. While an independent review of Prevent is under way – led by someone who has previously stated support for the policy – we must not fall into the trap of believing that reform is enough. Sixteen years after its creation, the abolition of Prevent is the only option.
• Ilyas Nagdee is the former NUS black students’ officer and now works on race equality in education
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