The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has said that a week-long national police initiative to raise awareness about terrorism is ill thought out and will only serve to further alienate Muslims.
Counter-terrorism officers intend to inform people at schools, universities, airports, shopping centres, cinemas and farms about terrorism. Police officers and theatre groups will be speaking to students about the PREVENT strategy, which provides practical help to people who may be drawn into terrorism.
But IHRC said it believes that further promotion of the PREVENT strategy will lead to yet more alienation. Far from stopping terrorism, the strategy, which has drawn massive criticism for legitimising religious profiling and intelligence gathering on the Muslim community, seems to have encouraged it.
The IHRC said: “The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, said over the weekend that there is growing concern about the possibility of a ‘lone-wolf’ terrorist attack in Britain. He says on average the police foiled one such plot each year, but in 2014 they have stopped four or five attacks.
“Apart from the rather disturbing fact that the most senior police officer in the UK doesn’t know the exact number of ‘lone wolf’ cases, the figures clearly suggest that PREVENT’s alleged aim of preventing radicalism is not working. We question the wisdom of trotting out more of the same failed prescription.”
IHRC chair Massoud Shadjareh added: “Government anti-terrorism policy is in total disarray and governed by the needs of foreign policy rather than the aim of preventing terrorism. The latest initiative is pumping the same failed PREVENT agenda that is actually responsible for driving more people into extremist violence.
“Moreover the fact that British non-Muslim fighters are now publicly known to be fighting in Syria without any apparent risk of being prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws on their return shows just how discriminatory their application is vis-a-vis the Muslim community. Any anti-terrorism policy must be coherent and consistent in prosecuting all terrorism and war crimes, not just those the government finds expedient.”
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New powers
On Monday the Home Secretary said police and security services will get new powers as the UK faces a terror threat “perhaps greater than it has ever been.”
Speaking at a counter-terrorism event in London, Mrs May told an audience “the time is right” for enhanced security measures.
She spelled out the scale of the threat to the UK, specifying that 40 planned terror attacks had been foiled since the 7 July bombings in London in 2005.
The new legislation includes:
- Counter-radicalisation measures – requirements that schools, colleges and probation providers help prevent people being radicalised
- Changes to TPIMs – Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures – to allow the authorities to force suspects to move to another part of the country
- Raising the burden of proof for imposing TPIMs from “reasonable belief” to “balance of probabilities”
- Greater powers to disrupt people heading abroad to fight – including cancelling passports at the border for up to 30 days
- Statutory temporary exclusion orders to control return to the UK of British citizens suspected of terrorist activity
- Tighter aviation security – requiring airlines to provide passenger data more quickly and effectively
- Banning insurance companies from covering ransoms
- Forcing firms to hand details to the police about who was using a computer or mobile phone at a given time
Speaking earlier, Britain’s counter-terrorism chief warned that police officers alone “cannot combat” the threat of extremism.
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley – the Association of Chief Police Officers’ national policing lead for counter-terrorism – said: “So far this year, we have disrupted several attack plots and made 271 arrests but the eyes and ears of law enforcement and other agencies alone cannot combat the threat.”
He sad the threat posed by violent extremists has “evolved” and is no longer a problem solely stemming from countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Now, they are home grown, in our communities, radicalised by images and messages they read on social media and prepared to kill for their cause,” he said.
He said “nearly half” of those from the UK joining Islamic State were “recently radicalised and weren’t previously on our radar”.
