This is a guest post by Khuram
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On Saturday the Guardian published a front page article by Vikram Dodd on the Governments PREVENT strategy. This article claimed there were concerns that the agenda was being used to spy and to gather information. On Sunday another article by Dodd stated that influential MPs were going to investigate these allegations. Interestingly, Dodd was also behind what was claimed to be a leak of the new Contest 2 strategy back in February 09, the actual strategy did not include anything of what was alleged. Two important questions need to be asked then: is PREVENT really about spying and is it effective?
On 07/09/09 three British Muslims were found guilty of the Liquid bombing plot. Had the plot gone ahead seven planes would have exploded in mid-air at the same time. The carnage would have exceeded the September the 11 attacks. The would be Bombers were under surveillance for some time, but was it wrong to spy on them? Several months prior, on 17 April 09, Isa Ibrahim, a convert to Islam, was arrested in Bristol and later charged under the terrorism act. Ibrahim was in possession of an explosive substance and was intent on committing a terrorist act. The tip off came from the local Muslim community. Was the local community in Bristol wrong to tip of the Police? Was this an example of unacceptable prying (spying) into an innocent individual’s life? Of course not.
Having been involved with community groups that have worked on PREVENT, I know its strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who has read the strategy properly will know that it doesn’t encourage spying, rather it promotes ways of identifying and tackling extremist ideologies. It encourages people to be vigilant and resilient against those who wish to cause harm to our society. The Andrew Ibrahim case was hailed as the first visible success of the strategy. One perceived weakness in the strategy was that it didn’t go far enough in naming some of the groups that were pushing extremist ideology in the UK. An attempt was made, however, to clarify this in the later CONTEST 2 strategy.
So why all the fuss about PREVENT? There are groups which feel threatened by this strategy and have opposed it all along. These are mainly Islamists who feel threatened because the agenda exposes their ideology and their allies, some leftists, who mistakenly perceive Islamists as allies in a continuing post-colonial struggle. Dodd’s misleading Contest 2 ‘leak’ has been picked up by Islamists and used to spread fear amongst Muslim communities. An example of this was a talk arranged in Hounslow on 11/07/09 called Putting Contest 2 into Context. The government needs to make sure it doesn’t inadvertently help such groups either by funding them or by consulting them on policy making decisions. There should be no empowering of Islamists, even if they claim to be non-violent, when their world view can be used to justify violence or encourage the mistrust and separatism that is so damaging to our whole society.
Extremist Islamist ideology in the UK has been around for at least three decades and it’s not going to be undermined overnight. Over the course of the past year a lot of hard work has been put into tackling extremist ideologies. There is no doubt in my mind that the police, public sector workers and community groups are far more aware of what this ideology is now than they were prior to the PREVENT strategy being launched. Accusations of spying do not help and only undermine the hard work that is being done to protect our society.
15 Comments
Dodd is a prat!
Reporting is not the same as spying!!!
Yeah, but besides dodd who else has stated that government gathers information on everyone and should do for intelligence purposes, and we should have a police state like Hitlers German state where you don’t know who will report you for what. Question: is saying we should get rid of Israel a statement of terrorist? Is someone who supports this a violent extremist? What about wing vulnerable to it? Is this someone we should be “monitoring” and informing on?
great article, I saw the Guardian report on Saturday and was shocked…not at the contents of the story, but at how the guardian manipulated their findings for scare-mongering purposes. As Khuram rightly points out, these kinds of articles only undermine the hard work that people are putting in to prevent further attacks on our shores. Furthermore, what would have been the reactions of guardianistas had the article been talking about spying on white people in order to counter the far right….?
simple answer…. A LOT DIFFERENT!
Shame, I use to enjoy reading the guardian…
Muslim Majority countries are the worst when it comes to spying. Don’t see many lefties speaking out against them!
Wether we like it or not all governments spy.
And don’t Islamists spy? how about the HT guys who are sent to Muslim Majority countries to instigate revolutions or the AQ operatives here in the West?
What hypocrisy by islamists and their lefty bum chums!
Agitat-Ed – No I don’t think saying ‘we should get rid of Israel’ is a crime or that one should be reported for making such a statement. Only those planning criminal activity should be reported to the police whilst their cheerleaders should be publicly challenged.
There is a real grave threat our country faces from a small bunch of terrorists that we don’t know much about. Survielance/Spying maybe the only method we have of avoiding another 7/7 style attack. Protection by any means nessecary.
Prime minster of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina once said:
“Terrorists have no border, no ideology, no religion.”
Here are those noted “Islamists” at the Times newspaper
“However, the critical government minister said that the foundation was receiving so much public money because it was perceived to be toeing the government line. “Ed and Quilliam have very little support in the mainstream Muslim community,” the minister said. “They have much more enemies than friends. But he’s loved by some ministers, which is why his organisation is having so much money thrown at it. And the Government knows that if you want a Muslim to say pro-government things, then Quilliam is the answer.”"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/arti cle5549138.ece
zaloom
So your role models on human rights are HT and Al Qaida
Since when where they not yours MCB boy?
Since when was Richard Kerbaj yours?
I think this article would elicit the following response from Mr Orwell
” If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. ”
Your standard response is to muckraker, you cannot, it would seem, handle the truth.
Which truth can who not handle Sid?
Agencies involved in countering terrorism must, perforce, make use of any and all sources of information; else they cannot function to the remit they are given by government.
To suggest that anyone involved in detection and prevention of terrorism should not or could not use any sources is not simply naive, but is to give a free gift to those who would introduce mayhem and terror onto the streets of Britain and elsewhere.