Luton Muslims 'feel targeted' by anti-terrorism Prevent strategy, meeting hears

Muslims in Luton feel they are being targeted when it comes to the Prevent strategy around extremism, a meeting heard.
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The issue was highlighted during the borough council’s annual scrutiny crime and disorder committee meeting last week.

A presentation on the local authority’s community safety partnership was extended following a recent gathering by far-right group Britain First in Luton town centre.

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Labour South councillor Javeria Hussain said: “A lot of Muslims in Luton feel as though we are being targeted. You need to get your narrative right.

Prevent is one of four areas of the government;s CONTEST anti-terrorism programmePrevent is one of four areas of the government;s CONTEST anti-terrorism programme
Prevent is one of four areas of the government;s CONTEST anti-terrorism programme

“It’s really important you go out to communities and explain what Prevent is about, what the aims and objectives are.

“That’s never happened. That’s given rise to hostilities. It gives rise to this fear that it’s just the Muslim communities being targeted.”

The council’s Prevent coordinator Sarah Pinnock told the committee: “Luton is still a Prevent priority area. We know there are concerns around the Prevent agenda at a national level.

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“The biggest influence for Luton will be to develop that dialogue through communities."

Luton chairs the 'pan-Bedfordshire Channel Panel', in which the council works with Central Beds Council and Bedford Borough Council to safeguard people vulnerable to radicalisation.

“In terms of the case studies we are dealing with, there are challenging cases,” explained Ms Pinnock.

“We have quite a significant upturn in cases which come to channel across the three local authority areas.

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“Luton has a profile within the media. We’ve worked hard to ensure Prevent and the issue of extremism is dealt with at that top end."

Liberal Democrat Barnfield councillor David Franks said: “In 2005, when the Prevent programme was introduced by Labour, we told the government quite plainly we didn’t want to know.

“This was because it was much too narrowly focused on Islam, and there are other areas that are equally worrying that the government ought to be concentrating on.

“We had no choice at the time. Fortunately the focus is broader now.

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“But it’s still very much tainted by those early years when it was focused only on one issue."

Prevent is one of four key areas of the government's anti-terrorism CONTEST programme and it has ignited fierce debate ever since it was first devised in 2003, with significant revisions in 2009, 2011 and 2018.

Muslim groups have long complained that the Prevent strategy focuses too heavily on Islam, and Luton Council of Mosques blasted it in 2016 for "causing fear" and "mistrust of Muslims". A UN report last week also judged the strategy's notion of extremism to be "ill-defined" and added it placed undue pressure on teachers, police officers, NHS staff and other workers to identify signs of radicalisation.

Nevertheless, an inspection by the police watchdog HMICFRS published last month praised the Prevent programme for its effectiveness. In the House of Lords, Lord Pickles, the government’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, has also called for anti-Semitism to be added to the programme.