Terror laws reviewer calls for independent oversight of PREVENT

David Anderson QC

The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has said there needs to be similar independent oversight of the PREVENT strategy.

PREVENT was designed to guard against home-grown terrorism but has been blamed for alienating the Muslim communities it was supposed to be engaging.

In a Daily Politics film, David Anderson said: “Is PREVENT working? Nobody knows – most things about PREVENT are classified… I don’t have the power to review PREVENT, but in my view some person or body of people ought to have the power do for PREVENT what I do for the counter terrorism laws.”

He also called for Schedule 7 laws – which give police the power to stop, detain and interrogate people at borders for up to 6 hours without the need for suspicion – to be more targeted.

“Schedule 7 is extremely useful to the police but it’s also a significant source of resentment in some quarters… it’s very important that the power is applied in a targeted way and without ethnic discrimination,” he said.

 

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