This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
“Prevent” is a government program in the United Kingdom intended to counter terrorism and stop violence.
But it’s ignoring the worst and most dangerous threat, from Islamists, according to charges from Christian Concern.
The organization cited a recent “Independent Review of Prevent” that found the group “is not doing enough to counter the violent Islamist extremism.”
“Prevent has lost its focus and lost its way. It has become unbalanced, focusing far too much on far-right extremism and not enough on Islamist extremism. It has, in the words of the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, in her response to the report, ‘become overly focused on addressing vulnerabilities rather than protecting the public from those who willingly support extremism,'” Christian Concern noted.
“This needs to change.”
The report noted that Islamist terrorism accounts for 80% of the Counter Terrorism Police network’s live investigations. Only 10% are “right-wing.”
“The government’s response to the report discloses that since the start of 2017, MI5 and the police have together disrupted 37 late-stage attack plots! Eight of these attack plots were in the last year. We should all be grateful for the incredible work these agencies do and their success which is literally saving lives,” the organization reported.
But, the report confirmed, all six of the U.K.’s “deadly” terror attacks since 2019 have been “Islamist.”
These include the brutal murder of Sir David Amess MP in October 2021 and the Liverpool suicide bomber in November 2021. Islamist-motivated attacks are therefore far more numerous and more deadly than those of any other motive. Yet only 22% of Prevent referrals for the year 2020 to 2021 concerned Islamism, the report said.
The report bluntly charges the government operations with “a double standard” in dealing with Islamist violence and so-called “extreme right-wing” operations.
“Extreme Right-Wing is treated aggressively, sometimes too aggressively, including commentary that has no connection to terrorism or radicalization. This actually included mainstream political commentators such as Rod Liddle, Melanie Phillips, and Douglas Murray! Meanwhile, there is a reticence to deal with Islamism nearly aggressively enough,” Christian Concern said.
“There is also a ‘wariness about using the term ‘Islamism’.’ This is a result of criticisms by organizations such as the National Association of Muslim Police which objects to the term, alleging that it ‘fuels Islamophobia,'” the report said.
Worse yet, Christian Concern explained, “Incredibly, Prevent has been funding some groups that have actually promoted terrorism or been strongly linked with extremists. In one case, the leader of a Prevent-funded organization had publicly made statements sympathetic to the Taliban and referred to proscribed military organizations as ‘so-called ‘terrorists’.’ The report even questions whether Prevent was ‘knowingly taking this approach’ and if not, whether there was any robust due diligence of such organizations.”
One of the significant failures is that there is a “lack of training” on dealing with Islamism, that a culture of “timidity” prevents fully opposing it, the report said.
Christian Concern said the problems are so severe that key leaders in the government operations “should resign or be replaced.”
