CAGE has released a report detailing how the Home Office has covertly funded seemingly independent groups to push state propaganda to the Muslim community.
The report, which is based on a year-long investigation, reveals the existence of front organisations which have been set up specifically to promote state propaganda.
These include:
- Anti-tribalism Movement: Somalia: time to go home and Return to Somalia
- Armed Forces Muslim Association: Faith on the Frontline
- Don’t go to Syria, only give to registered charities: Syria Needs Your Help and Change the Picture
- Families Against Stress and Trauma: Families Matter
- Upstanding Neighbourhoods: KIKIT Pathwayz and Open Your Eyes: ISIS Lies
- Quilliam Foundation: #NotAnotherBrother
- Federation of Muslim Organisations: Ummah Sonic
- Faith Associates: Imams Online
Over the past five years, according to CAGE, a secretive Home Office department called RICU, the Research, Information and Communications Unit, has been cultivating a network of “grassroots” Muslim voices to promote “counter-narratives” to combat the appeal of “extremist narratives” among Britain’s young people.
The covert nature of the counter-narrative programme and the pretence that these messages come from independent, representative or grassroots community organisations, CAGE says, is deeply misleading and unbecoming of a government that claims to uphold transparency.
Further, CAGE alleges that the PR company (Breakthrough Media) delivering a number of these counter-narratives is protected under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), and if so the use of the OSA to protect a propaganda programme would be a “gross misuse of governmental power and authority.”
Ben Hayes, report author, said: “We should be under no illusion as to what is going on here. When the government starts using community groups and NGO’s to disseminate government propaganda to hoodwink the public into believing they are authentic, ‘grass roots’ campaigns, it damages everyone in civil society.
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“Democracy requires clear lines between the security state and the police on the one hand, and civil society, public and social services on the other. Having railed against ‘sock-puppet’ NGOs and introduced a ban on charities in receipt of public money lobbying government, it is time for an honest conversation about the impact, legitimacy and effectiveness of the government’s own secret propaganda programmes.”
Asim Qureshi, Research Director and report author, added: “RICU is using ‘grassroots’ organisations as mouthpieces for a PREVENT sanctioned agenda, which justifies a securitised approach to all aspects of Muslim life.”
“There is also evidence to suggest that the Government is using the Official Secrets Act to hide its relationship with the role of Breakthrough Media, the PR company driving the propaganda. This suggests an abuse of power and a contempt for open society.
“The findings of this report should be a cause of concern to the British public. It confirms the hidden hand of those who wish to manufacture consent for the expansion of the security state. We are calling for greater scrutiny of RICU work, to include an independent audit to assess the ethics and cost of the whole programme.”
In an article in the Guardian yesterday, one senior Home Office official acknowledged the RICU unit was engaged in propaganda campaigns but said: “All we’re trying to do is stop people becoming suicide bombers.”
Westminster’s intelligence and security committee, which oversees Ricu, says it believes the unit’s work is an important element of the Prevent strategy.
Several other former government ministers familiar with Ricu’s work insisted it was an essential component of the government’s efforts to counter Isis propaganda.
One former minister said it would be “naive” to suggest the government could openly communicate its counter-radicalisation messages. But another, who is broadly supportive of Ricu, said he believed the deception involved in the dissemination of the messages could damage trust between the government and Muslim citizens.
