AN 8-POINT PLAN TO ABOLISH PREVENT

Beyond Prevent - Towards a healthy and safe society. Over 100 leading academics, professionals, political figures and organisers have endorsed the plan below

We, the undersigned, recognise that PREVENT is a failed policy that must be abolished and firmly uprooted from society.

 

The latest attempt to ‘independently review’ the policy has emerged as being nothing more than a PR exercise to deal with surface-level issues, whilst the Commission for Countering Extremism’s new report seeks to further entrench the framework of Prevent in all but name.

 

The rationale and ‘science’ underpinning the policy have been roundly debunked by academics and experts across the board – yet it still continues to be experimented on communities.

 

The Government’s insistence on the policy against all facts is not only ideologically-driven but also due to its refusal to engage alternative thinking.

 

Decades of security-heavy policies have not reduced political violence nor addressed the root causes of it. We believe an alternative approach must break from the endless cycle of review, reform and rhetoric.

 

We must move beyond the narrow, rigged discussions which begin and end on the terms set by government and the security industry – namely that we need surveillance programmes to combat “extremism” and “radicalisation”.

 

Rather, we need to reframe the conversation, broaden our collective horizons, and talk about how we can work towards building a healthy, safe society free from violence

To that end, we believe the following framework provides a set of short and long term goals through which we can rebuild that society:


1 - PREVENT must be scrapped as a programme - this includes the PREVENT under CONTEST, the Prevent duty under the Counter Terrorism and Security Act (2015), Channel.


2 - We must abandon the discriminatory frameworks underpinning PREVENT - including the ERG22+ framework, the weaponisation of ‘Fundamental British Values’, and the notion that violence is primarily about ideology.


3 - An end to austerity and the restoration of no-strings investment in community-based projects and initiatives: civil society should not be brought into the counter-extremist orbit.


4 - An ethical foreign policy framework must be established, which will remove much of the material bases from which grievances take root - this includes withdrawing from international warfare, divesting from the arms trade and severing support for autocrats and occupiers.


5 - We must de-securitise the state, and break from the logic of governance that proposes preemptive policing, securitisation and surveillance as the only way of governing society


6 - Establish a society where civil rights can be exercised properly, and where civic organisations can breathe without being subject to the chilling effect of surveillance - rather than having the population at large disenfranchised.


7 - Decouple welfare and safeguarding from counter-terrorism and policing.


8 - Repeal all the counter-terror laws instituted since 2000, instead, relying on existing criminal justice law, due process principles and judicial processes to deal with acts of violence.


This framework will provide the policy ‘umbrella’ under which communities can begin the vital work of rebuilding themselves on the principles of trust, support and solidarity.



Signed: 


1. Magid Magid, MEP for Yorkshire & the Humber, former Lord Mayor of Sheffield 2. Lowkey - Hip Hop artist 

3. Zamzam Ibrahim, NUS President 

4. Professor Humayun Ansari OBE, Royal Holloway University 

5. Lee Jasper, Former Deputy Mayor of London 

6. Remy Mohammed, President of the Association of Muslim Lawyers. 

7. Lily Hall, Showroom Gallery 

8. Raja Faisal, Luton Sunni Council of Mosques 

9. NETPOL 

10. Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) 

11. CAMPACC (Campaign Against Criminalising Communities) 

12. Hollaback! London 

13. Professor Adam Gearey, Birkbeck 

14. Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck 

15. Professor Dave Hill, Emeritus Professor of Education at Anglia Ruskin University

16. Professor David Miller, University of Bristol 

17. Professor David Whyte, University of Liverpool 

18. Professor Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Professor of Politics, Northwestern University 19. Professor Eric Herring, University of Bristol 

20. Professor Julian Petley, Brunel University London 

21. Professor Khaled A. Beydoun, Univ. of Arkansas School of Law/UC-Berkeley

22. Professor Les Back, Goldsmiths University 

23. Professor Richard Jackson, University of Otago 

24. Professor Ruth Blakeley, University of Sheffield 

25. Professor Salman Sayyid, University of Leeds 

26. Professor Stellan Vinthagen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst/University of Gothenburg

27. Professor Walter Armbrust -St Anthony's College 

28. Dr. Nadine El-Enany, Senior Lecturer in Law, Birkbeck School of Law. 

29. Dr Rizwaan Sabir, Liverpool John Moores University

30. Dr Amani Hassani 

31. Dr Anas Altikriti, The Cordoba Foundation 

32. Dr Anjana Raghavan, Sheffield Hallam University 

33. Dr Bethan Harries, University of Newcastle 

34. Dr Charlotte Heath-Kelly, Warwick University 

35. Dr Emma O’Dwyer, Kingston University 

36. Dr Fahid Qurashi, Staffordshire University 

37. Dr Fatima Rajina, UCL 

38. Dr Feyzi Ismail, SOAS 

39. Dr Joanna Gilmore, University of York 

40. Dr Joe Greener, University of Liverpool 

41. Dr Karis Campion, University of Manchester 

42. Dr Katy Sian, York University 

43. Dr Khadijah Elshayyal, University of Edinburgh 

44. Dr Layla Hadj, Prevent Watch 

45. Dr Leena Robertson, Middlesex University 

46. Dr Les Levidow, Open University 

47. Dr Lisa Hajjar, University of California, Santa Barbara 

48. Dr Muhammad Khan, Ruskin College, Oxford 

49. Dr Naaz Rashid, University of Sussex 

50. Dr Nadya Ali, Sussex University 

51. Dr Narzanin Massoumi, Exeter University 

52. Dr Nisha Kapoor, Warwick University 

53. Dr Osman Latiff, Royal Holloway University of London 

54. Dr Paul-Francois Tremlett, Open University 

55. Dr Philip Thomas, Former Professor of Philosophy Diversity and Mental Health, UCLan

56. Dr Sadia Habib 

57. Dr Salman Butt, Islam 21c 

58. Dr Sarah Earnshaw, University of California, Bekeley 

59. Dr Siema Iqbal, AVOW 

60. Dr Tanzil Chowdhury, Queen Mary University

61. Dr Thomas MacManus, Queen Mary University London

62. Dr Tina Managhan, Oxford Brookes University 

63. Dr Usaama Al-Azami, University of Oxford 

64. Dr Vivian Vignoles, University of Sussex 

65. Dr. Graham Smith, University of Manchester 

66. Dr Ghazala Mir, University of Leeds 

67. Dr. Haitham al-Haddad, Independent Scholar 

68. Dr. Tarek Younis, Middlesex University 

69. Dr Asim Qureshi, CAGE 

70. Adam Elliot Cooper, Greenwich University 

71. Amanda Latimer, Kingston University 

72. Jasbinder S. Nijjar, Brunel University 

73. Kerem Nişancıoğlu, SOAS University 

74. Lisa Redlinski, Brighton University 

75. Yahya Birt, University of Leeds 

76. Arzu Merali, Islamic Human Rights Commission 

77. Mufti Amjad Mohammed, Senior Jurist of Markaz al-Ifta wa’l-Qada

78. Imam Muhammad Shoyaib Nurgat, Masjid-e-Umer, Walthamstow

79. Imam Shakeel Begg, Lewisham Islamic Centre 

80. Imam Suliman Gani, Purley Masjid 

81. Imran Shah MPAC UK 

82. Ismail Patel, Friends of Al Aqsa 

83. Attiq Malik, Liberty Law Solicitors 

84. Rob Faure Walker, Prevent Digest 

85. Roshan Muhammad Salih, Editor 5 Pillars 

86. Richard Haley, SACC 

87. Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign 

88. Community Action on Prison Expansion 

89. Cradle Community 

90. Empty Cages Collective 

91. Sisters of Frida

92. Malia Bouattia, Former President of the NUS 

93. Fope Olaleye, NUS Black Students Officer 

94. Adnan Rahman, NUS National Executive Council 

95. Ghulam Haydar, Myriad Foundation 

96. Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Maslaha 

97. Hamid Mahmood, Founder and Director of Fatima Elizabeth Phrontistery

98. Hamza Saghir, Cube Network 

99. Mabrur Ahmed, Restless Beings 

100. Ms. Anne Mitchell, Retired FE deputy principal 

101. Navine Khan-Dossos, Artist 

102. Rahima Begum, Restless Beings 

103. Rukon Hassan, Ikhwa 

104. Saleh Mamon, CAMPACC 

105. Shelley Assiter, Therapist 

106. Sue Udry, Defending Rights & Dissent 

107. Yusuf Patel, Founder SRE Islamic 

108. Zeyn Thompson, Psychiatrist 

109. Kelsey Mohamed 

110. Lani Parker 

111. Ifhat Smith 

112. Nic Aaron 

113. Mo Mansfield 


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