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
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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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