The public face of the Prevent programme has included a talking lion teaching schoolchildren how to spot a terrorist and even puppets taking to the streets to push the message about countering extremism.
The official publicity talks of building community resilience against terrorist extremism, and other phrases few would disagree with.
But there has been a growing suspicion among British Muslim
communities that Prevent was not all that it seemed.
The programme saw money going to councils with the largest Muslim populations, with the aim of defeating Islamist violent extremism. The government and
police wanted information from teachers and lecturers and others including those in the voluntary sector about terrorist activity.
Few would argue with passing on suspicions about terrorist activity. As one imam who receives funding from Prevent for a project said: "It would be a religious duty to inform."
Youth workers who are being asked to inform on youngsters they work with also said they were under an existing legal and ethical duty to report any suspicions that their clients are involved in terrorism.
The issue with Prevent is the gathering of highly sensitive information about named individuals when they are not suspected of involvement in crime.
As part of Prevent, councils have drawn up information sharing agreements (ISA) which state what data about individuals the groups they fund will share with police.
The Guardian has obtained the agreement drawn up by Islington council in north London and the Metropolitan police. The ISA from Waltham Forest in east London was released under freedom of information legislation. Both reveal that the data or intelligence that can be shared is of the most sensitive kind and about named individuals.
The ISA from Islington is the most explicit about the information to be shared: "Personal data; data which relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data …"
It goes on: "Sensitive personal data; personal data which consists of information concerning racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or other similar beliefs, physical/mental health or conditions, sexual life, alleged or committed offences, proceedings …"
The types of information to be gathered are repeated later, but this time it is spelt out that they include whether the youth suffered abuse, and "lifestyle, family and associates". In case that is not enough, it says: "Any other information as required."
The document states this information will be shared "without the explicit consent" of the individual. It does state it must be secured and marked as "restricted". It can also be shared across the European Union.
Those supposed to sign up are the police, youth services and community groups working with Arab and Muslim groups in the borough, as well as a local mosque.
The ISA for Waltham Forest, again drawn up with the Met, states the information must be held until the person is aged 100. According to the document: "If a community intervention is required to prevent a crime then personal information processed in this regard is done so as a matter of public protection … information relating to public protection must be retained until such time as the subject is deemed to have reached 100 years of age … the minimum review period for this information is every 10 years."
Waltham Forest's Prevent action plan for 2009-10, prepared after government advice, states all
young people should have their behaviour screened. They and those deemed to be vulnerable to radicalisation are deemed to be suitable for a "targeted approach" and "an assessment of behaviour changes".
One source with close knowledge of British counter-terrorism said the programme was mixed: "There is good Prevent and there is bad Prevent."
A government document prepared in the summer for an international conference in Finland about combating terrorism explicitly states that the security services are involved in the programme. Listing those involved in Prevent, it lists the Department for Communities and
Local Government, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, and the intelligence agencies.
Those it wants involved in providing information include local crime reduction partnerships, councils, schools, further education, universities, the UK Border Agency, youth offending teams, the probation service, the health sector, the third or voluntary sector, and the community sector. Prevent currently operates in 82 local councils, rising to 94 by next year.
A report out this weekend from the Institute for Race Relations also alleges Prevent is being used in part to gather intelligence. In its research it held talks in Bradford with managers of Muslim voluntary sector organisations and workers in local authorities. Arun Kundnani, from the IRR, said there was widespread distrust of the Prevent programme, and said: "Many were concerned the programme provided an opportunity for the police to embed intelligence gathering into the delivery of local services, such as youth work.
"Many spoke about the difficulties they had faced when they raised their concerns – some had found they became the target of smear campaigns. A significant number of participants, who had previously worked on the Prevent programme, had decided that they no longer wanted anything to do with it – even if it meant substantial loss of funding for their organisation."
The details about Prevent revealed today will stoke the worst fears in Britain's Muslim communities that they are suspects merely because of the God to whom they pray. Sharhabeel Lone, a community worker in Camden, north London, and a member of the borough's community safety partnership, said: "This is not based on suspicious criminal activity but on religious affiliation."
One source with knowledge of Prevent, who is broadly a supporter, told of how certain Muslim groups were informing on other groups they dislike. The source told how one northern council was repeatedly told that one sect was extremist and eventually withdrew its funding.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "The worst aspect of this scandalous policy is the attempt to turn teacher against pupil, and neighbour against neighbour.
"As other European countries learned in the last century, when the state destroys relationships of trust between ordinary people the result is the very opposite of the democratic values that this agenda claims to promote. It's a recipe for denunciation by one group or neighbour against another and a great deal of injustice."
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