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Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

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    Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam (OP)


    Salaam

    Event: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Recent events from the Middle East have placed the Muslim community in Britain in the public eye once more with their every word and action coming under microscopic scrutiny by the media and politicians. This is only the latest chapter in an ideological attack that has been ongoing for significantly longer.

    Whereas the attacks on Islamic concepts of war, political governance and the unity of Muslim lands are nothing new, they have now increased on an unprecedented scale in the wake of the rise of ISIS and its declaration of a Caliphate. The matter is not about supporting or opposing the version of a Caliphate as demonstrated by ISIS but rather the criminalisation of Islamic political thought and ideology. The concepts of jihad, shariah and khilafah are not the exclusive possession of ISIS but core Islamic doctrines subscribed to by almost one third's of the world's population. It is telling that the government's treatment of ISIS is similar to its treatment of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb-ut Tahrir, and the Taliban, despite the enormous differences of belief and methodology between the groups.

    The Islamophobic nature of the criminalisation of those who believe in fighting in Syria against Assad is underlined by the lack of concern for British Jews who fight in the Israeli Occupation Forces, particularly at times where they are engaged in war crimes and other atrocities, such as the recent attack on Gaza.

    On the flips side, Muslims who wish to aid their brothers and sisters through the provision of humanitarian aid via aid convoys are having their homes raided, being harassed by the security services and are effectively being accused of engaging in terrorism. Charities are having their bank accounts closed without explanation and are coming under investigation by the Charity Commission simply for being involved in crisis zones like Gaza and Syria. Witch-hunts such as the Trojan Horse hoax and the mass hysteria over issues of the niqab, halal food and conservative Muslim values demonstrate that the criminalisation is spreading beyond Middle Eastern politics. Individuals and organisations within the Muslim community who have been speaking out against these policies are now under attack. They have had their organisation, business and bank accounts arbitrarily closed. Even their children's bank accounts have been closed. They are maligned in the media as terrorist sympathisers, extremists and jihadists. Some have even been imprisoned.

    The common element across all these cases is that those targeted cared for the oppressed and for those who are suffering. They have been criminalised because they cared.

    Join CAGE at this series of events around the country to unite the Muslim communities against this criminalisation of our faith, our beliefs, our mosques and organisations, and our leaders. The following regional events will take place with the large conference taking place on 20 September at the Waterlily in London.

    Sunday 14 September - 6pm

    Pakistani Community Centre, Park Hall, London Road, Reading RG1 2PA

    Jamal Harwood
    Dr Adnan Siddiqui
    Dr Uthman Lateef
    Anas al-Tikriti
    Taji Mustafa
    Wednesday 17 September - 7pm
    East Pearl Banqueting Centre, Longsight, Manchester
    Ibrahim Hewitt
    Abdullah Andalusi
    Jahangir Mohammed

    Friday 19 September - 6.30pm

    Muslim Student House (the Daar), Moseley, Birmingham

    Dr Uthman Lateef
    Ismail Adam Patel
    Abdullah Andalusi
    Dr Abdul Wahid
    Fahad Ansari

    http://www.cageuk.org/event/it-crime-care

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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

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    Salaam

    Another update

    Cameron’s latest counter-extremism policy attempts to challenge Islam

    The government has just announced its plans for another reboot of so-called ‘counter-extremism’ policies that have failed under previous administrations.

    We have little doubt that their latest version – these latest measures coupled with the Prevent related measures in the CTS Act 2015 – will also fail, despite the threat to be more draconian because the policy is fundamentally flawed, dishonest, unjust and plain bonkers!

    It is flawed because it rests on a false premise: the lie that the more Islamic a person is, the more of a potential threat they pose. ‘Deradicalisation’ has therefore come to mean making Muslims less Islamic and more ‘westernised’ or secular, using coercive means.

    It is dishonest for the very same reason – because it hides this agenda of forced-assimilation behind a security threat. Just a few months ago, the organisation Europol published research that showed the percentage of terrorist attacks in Europe motivated by religious motivation (of which those committed by Muslims is a subset) was 2%. Even if the real target of such policies was violence rather than identity, criminalising whole communities for their political opinions or religious values is utterly disproportionate – as is expecting teachers, doctors, nurses and nursery workers to be a security arm of the state.

    It is unjust because using loose definitions (exemplified by Theresa May’s babbling on BBC Radio 4 Today programme – 13th of May) means it will be so broad that it catches any non-establishment political views or less-than-liberal religious views. This means that the state will either clamp down on these people as well – or (more likely) the laws will be applied selectively, further politicising the criminal justice system.

    There are many hypocritical ironies to these policies. Do they really want to deal with ‘Poppy-Burners’ by taking a flame thrower to Magna Carta? Are they serious about talking about ‘rule of law’ as being a fundamentally ‘British value’ when their own security services violate it so frequently? Will they really label every critic of liberal values or the democratic system as an extremist’? Can they really claim to be a bastion of ‘free speech’ yet criminalise the views they don’t like or can’t refute?

    It is bonkers because, whilst everyone in society can discuss issues such as Syria, Palestine, Jihad, Shari’ah and ISIS, most Imams and Islamic scholars donot dare discuss these issues in any meaningful way for fear of being labeled ‘extremist’ or ‘hate-preachers’ – so leaving a mountain of unanswered questions for the Muslim youth. This is utterly stupid in an era when young people need legitimate Islamic answers to difficult questions.

    Our aim is to continue to discuss these issues, educate Muslims about them to the best of our ability, and to encourage other Muslims to do the same.

    Our aim is to work in protecting people’s Islamic identity at a time when they are being bullied into hiding it.

    Our aim is to expose pernicious policies like these wherever and whenever we can, and to encourage practitioners of these policies to reject them.

    They are not about ‘terrorism’ or violence – they are about identity, political views and religious values. They are a deflection from government policies – foreign and domestic – that are recognized drivers of legitimate grievances.

    Cameron, May and Gove doubtless think they are more capable than Stalin, Islam Karimov and the leaders of Quraysh in forcing Muslims to abandon Islamic values.

    However, it is our belief that just as their forebears failed to both convince Muslims by intellectual argument they will similarly fail to coerce Muslims by force.

    Every student of history or religion knows that whenever an arrogant ruling class tries to crush the values of a principled few, they always end humiliated.

    http://www.hizb.org.uk/current-affai...hallenge-islam

    Last edited by سيف الله; 05-14-2015 at 04:12 PM.
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    The Abolition of Liberty in the Name of Security

    Here we are again with a government talking about laws to control ‘extremism’, a state of mind defined by failure to show enough respect for ‘British values’.

    These ‘values’ apparently include ’democracy’ and ‘the rule of law’.

    Please see my comments on the previous attempt to move in this direction, including alarming plans for the preliminary vetting of student meetings, laudably scuttled by (among others) Nick Clegg, whose good deeds should be acknowledged http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2015/01/dont-like-the-pc-mob-well-now-that-makes-you-a-terror-threat.html

    In this article I pointed out : ‘Institutions will be obliged to promote ‘British values’. These are defined as ‘democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs’. ‘Vocal and active opposition’ to any of these is now officially described as ‘extremism’.

    Given authority’s general scorn for conservative Christianity, and its quivering, obsequious fear of Islam, it is easy to see how the second half will be applied in practice. As for ‘democracy’, plenty of people (me included) are not at all sure we have it, and wouldn’t be that keen on it if we did.’

    A few months earlier, I had argued that the nebulous concept of ‘extremism’ could not possibly be of any use in legal or political matters, having no objective meaning. I suspect the ‘definition’ I quote above was cooked up in response to such criticisms.

    Here, in any case, was my argument in June last year:

    http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/06/the-word-extremism-does-not-mean-anything.html

    …and I stand absolutely by it now.

    I often ask readers to answer this question.: How do you think a totalitarian regime could or would be installed in a free society such as ours? Is it more likely that it will arrive in some thunderclap, as black-uniformed fanatics seize the state, or that it will grow in our midst by small and popular increments, introduced on the pretext of saving us from a supposed ‘terrorist’ threat?

    It remains absolutely the case that, with the clear exception of incitement to violence, speech should be free. The law is involved only after a crime has been committed and in a free society cannot and must be used to pre-approve publication or speech. Stifling free speech is the staircase down to slavery. The moment we are having our speeches and articles scanned for ‘extremism’ by policemen we are out of the world of freedom and deep in the territory of tyranny ( Social Democrat public meetings in 19th century Germany could only be held in the presence of a uniformed police officer monitoring the speeches – do you want this?).

    There are good practical reasons for this as well. If political fanatics are permitted to organise and publish in the open, we will be much better able to know what they are doing and to observe their interaction with actual men of violence. If we seek to restrict the expression of opinion by law, we will merely ensure that these interactions will take place in secret, where we cannot observe them.

    I am shocked that any educated British person is not instantly revolted by this, as I am. This is one of the reasons why I noted the other day that the country I grew up in was both more honest and better-educated than the one we now live in. I don’t suppose even one member of the current Cabinet even knows who John Hampden was or what the Trial of the Seven Bishops was, or why it matters, or has more than the vaguest idea of the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights and the whole thrilling period of our national history during which this country decisively rejected arbitrary power, secret courts, torture, and threw out continental autocracy in favour of liberty under the law.

    ‘British values’ indeed. ‘British values’ might as well be a taste for instant mashed potato, annual holidays in the sun, bad TV comedy and gassy lager.

    These ‘anti-terrorist’ oafs know no poetry and no history and they do not love their country, indeed they barely know where and what it is .

    How about this : ‘And whereas also by the statute called 'The Great Charter of the Liberties of England,' it is declared and enacted, that no freeman may be taken or imprisoned or be disseized of his freehold or liberties, or his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.’

    That’s a British value, if you like. As is this ; ‘when complaints are freely heard, deeply consider'd and speedily reform'd, then is the utmost bound ofcivill liberty attain'd, that wise men looke for.’

    And this, too ;

    ‘It is not to be thought of that the Flood

    Of British freedom, which, to the open sea

    Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity

    Hath flowed, "with pomp of waters, unwithstood,"

    Roused though it be full often to a mood

    Which spurns the check of salutary bands,

    That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands

    Should perish; and to evil and to good

    Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung

    Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:

    We must be free or die, who speak the tongue

    That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold

    Which Milton held.—In every thing we are sprung

    Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold.’


    Or something like that, anyway. Chuck it, May.

    http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another depressing update.


    Jihadi threat requires move into 'private space' of UK Muslims, says police chief

    Exclusive: Britain’s most senior Muslim officer says potency of Islamist propaganda means some five-year-olds believe Christmas is forbidden


    Islamist propaganda is so potent it is influencing children as young as five and should be countered with intensified monitoring to detect the earliest signs of anti-western sentiment, Britain’s most senior Muslim police chief has warned.

    Scotland Yard commander Mak Chishty said children aged five had voiced opposition to marking Christmas, branding it as “haram” – forbidden by Islam. He also warned that there was no end in sight to the parade of British Muslims, some 700 so far, being lured from their bedrooms to Syria by Islamic State (Isis) propaganda.

    In an interview with the Guardian, Chishty said there was now a need for “a move into the private space” of Muslims to spot views that could show the beginning of radicalisation far earlier. He said this could be shown by subtle changes in behaviour, such as shunning certain shops, citing the example of Marks & Spencer, which could be because the store is sometimes mistakenly perceived to be Jewish-owned.

    Chishty said friends and family of youngsters should be intervening much earlier, watching out for subtle, unexplained changes, which could also include sudden negative attitudes towards alcohol, social occasions and western clothing. They should challenge and understand what caused such changes in behaviour, the police commander said, and seek help, if needs be from the police, if they are worried.

    Chishty is the most senior Muslim officer in Britain’s police service and is head of community engagement for the Metropolitan police in London. He said Isis propaganda was so powerful he had to be vigilant about his own children. But some will argue that his ideas walk a fine line between vigilance in the face of potent extremist propaganda and criminalising thought.

    Scotland Yard has recently said police are making nearly an arrest a day as they try to counter a severe Islamist terrorist threat. On Friday, the Met confirmed it is investigating the potential grooming and radicalisation of a 16-year-old east London girl to run away and join her sister in Isis to become a “jihadi bride”. Police estimate that about half the 700 thought to have gone to Syria to support Isis have since returned to Britain.

    Chishty said communities in Britain had to act much earlier. He said: “We need to now be less precious about the private space. This is not about us invading private thoughts, but acknowledging that it is in these private spaces where this [extremism] first germinates. The purpose of private-space intervention is to engage, explore, explain, educate or eradicate. Hate and extremism is not acceptable in our society, and if people cannot be educated, then hate and harmful extremism must be eradicated through all lawful means.”

    He said that what was new about Isis is the use of social media and the internet to spread its message and urge people lured by it to join the group or stage attacks in their home country.

    Asked to define “private space”, Chishty said: “It’s anything from walking down the road, looking at a mobile, to someone in a bedroom surfing the net, to someone in a shisha cafe talking about things.”

    He said friends and family were best placed to intervene. Questions should be asked, he said, if someone stops shopping at Marks & Spencer or starts voicing criticism. He said it could be they were just fed up with the store, but alternatively they could have “hatred for that store”. He said the community should “look out for each other”, that Isis was “un-Islamic”, as proven by its barbarity.

    In February, three teenage girls from a school in Bethnal Green, east London, slipped away from their families to travel to Turkey and then into Isis-held territory in Syria. Their families said there had been no clue, but Chishty said there must have been some change in the children: “My view as a parent is there must have been signs.”

    The propaganda of Isis was so powerful, the officer said, that he feared his own children might be vulnerable. He said his message to fellow Muslim parents was: “I am not immunised.” “If I feel the need to be extra vigilant, then I think you need to feel the need to be extra vigilant,” he said.

    He said he had heard of cases of children seemingly influenced by Islamist views in stable families in which the parents or guardians had moderate views.

    In the example of primary school children defining Christmas as “haram”, he insisted this was “factual” and said that while it may not be a police matter, parents and family needed to ask how children as young as five had come to that view, whether it be from school or their friends. Chishty said: “All the ugly bits of the problem, which are uncomfortable, you have to … deal with them properly, as a state, as a nation, as a community.”

    He added that Muslim communities had done a lot to fight extremism but, given that there was no end in sight to the struggle and no slowing up in the stream of young people being attracted to extremism, it would need a level of vigilance not seen before. He said that current strategies were not working. “We are in unchartered water … We are facing a risk, a threat which is global, which is powerfully driven by social media, reaching you on your own through your mobile phone.”

    The UK’s counter-radicalisation strategy has been criticised for co-opting those trusted by the young, such as teachers and youth workers, to inform on them to the authorities.

    Chishty said it did not make someone an extremist if they criticised “British values”, but friends and family should ask why, especially if it marked a change in their view. He said more work was needed to understand why youngsters were attracted to Isis: “Some are bored, overqualified, underemployed … It is not a holy war.”

    Chishty warned of a very real threat to Muslims in Britain from the backlash that might follow a terrorist attack, which counter-terrorism officials believe is a matter of when, not if.

    After the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013 by two men espousing jihadi views, attacks against Muslims increased from one to seven a day, and there were 28 attacks on Muslim buildings. Such an attack, and even terrorist atrocities abroad, such as January’s massacre in Paris of Charlie Hebdo staff, were making community relations in London more challenging, but he said police had boosted their efforts to reassure and protect all communities.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/24/jihadi-threat-requires-move-into-private-space-of-uk-muslims-says-police-chief
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another video

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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another video

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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Chishty sounds like a Zionist poodle. Talks like a textbook lefty liberal.
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Seems the UK becoming more and more authoritarian. Muslim Parents have to be vigilant

    Fury after primary pupils are asked to complete radicalisation-seeking surveys

    Parents of children as young as nine have reacted angrily after schools in an east London borough asked pupils to complete surveys designed to provide clues to possible radicalisation. Waltham Forest council has been piloting the scheme in five primary schools with large Muslim intakes. The questionnaire, circulated among year 6 pupils, asks how much they trust the police and people from another race or religion.

    They are also asked whether they agree that it is acceptable to marry someone from outside their race or religion and whether women are just as good as men at work. Another question asks if the pupils believe their religion is the only correct one. About 22% of the population in Waltham Forest, one of the most deprived local authorities in England, are Muslim.

    The programme has been funded with a €500,000 (£360,000) grant from an EU fund – the Radicalisation Leading to Terrorism Programme – designed to “identify the initial seeds of radicalisation with children of primary school age”.

    But some parents have complained they were not consulted about the surveys. One parent of an 11-year-old boy at Buxton primary school in Leytonstone, who was asked to complete the questionnaire, said: “This is why we need to get involved with this, otherwise ‘monitoring’ like this goes unchecked and without vetting. No letter was sent home explaining this and I found out just talking to my son.”

    Other parents expressed outrage on Twitter. “This is shockingly Orwellian,” one said. “Our kids don’t stand a chance. Guessing there’s going to be a big jump in home schooling.”

    A council spokeswoman said concerns had been raised about the survey, especially as pupils had been asked to put their name and other identifying details on the forms. Because the surveys were supposed to have been anonymous, all of those carried out so far may be destroyed.

    The programme, known as Brit – Building Resilience Through Integration & Trust – is targeted at nine- to 11-year-olds and involves lesson plans and workbooks about identity and belonging. The charity Family Action is delivering the programme to schools.

    Among other questions in the survey, children are asked if they agree or disagree with a series of statements including “God has a purpose for me” and “If a student was making fun of my race or religion I would try to make them stop even if it meant hurting them.” They are also asked to tick three boxes with which they identify, choosing from British, Muslim, student, artist, athlete, Christian and young.

    A joint statement issued by the school’s executive headteacher Kath Wheeler and chair of governors Tom Williams apologised for any distress caused and said that an internal investigation had been launched. “When we agreed to run the Brit project on behalf of Waltham Forest Council, we were not made aware that this questionnaire would be included. If we had, current procedures would have identified concerns from the outset as this involved potentially identifiable and sensitive information.”

    The surveys had been sent to a junior member of staff at the school and had not been seen by the senior leadership, according to the statement. “The local authority has confirmed their intention was to anonymise and then destroy the questionnaires,” it said. “Despite this we will not be taking part in this method of evaluation now or in the future.”

    The Islamic Human Rights Commission has urged parents to boycott the questionnaire. Its chairman, Massoud Shadjareh, said it had been designed to target and profile Muslim children. “At this young age, we should be thinking about nurturing and developing our children, not compartmentalising them. I think the questionnaire has clearly been devised by people who haven’t got a clue about radicalisation.

    “Some of the questions are just plain ridiculous. It’s also clearly racist and Islamophobic – there would be uproar if they mentioned the word ‘Jew’ or ‘black’ in the identity question.”

    Local councillors Mark Rusling and Liaquat Ali said: “The Brit project is a council programme that works with primary school pupils and their families to develop community cohesion. We’re glad this has sparked a debate, as our aim is to encourage people to talk about the importance of cohesion at all ages.”

    Bill Bolloten, an independent education consultant, expressed concern. “Some Muslim parents have been saying on Twitter that they will tell their children not to answer any questions at all. It’s important that schools do explore pupils’ multiple identities, but this project is tainted by the desire to spot the signs of extremism in primary school children.”

    http://www.hizb.org.uk/news-watch/fury-after-primary-pupils-are-asked-to-complete-radicalisation-seeking-surveys
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update. The criminalisation of Islam is well underway.

    Schools monitoring pupils' web use with 'anti-radicalisation software'

    Software flags up trigger words and phrases such as ‘jihadi bride’, ‘jihobbyist’ and ‘you only die once’


    Schools are being sold software to monitor pupils’ internet activity for extremism-related language such as “jihadi bride” and “YODO”, short for you only die once.

    Several companies are producing “anti-radicalisation” software to monitor pupils’ internet activity ahead of the introduction of a legal requirement on schools to consider issues of terrorism and extremism among children.

    Under the Counter-terrorism and Security Act 2015, which comes into force on 1 July, there is a requirement that schools “have due regard to the need to prevent pupils being drawn into terrorism”.

    One company, Impero, has launched a pilot of its software in 16 locations in the UK as well as five in the US. Teachers can store screenshots of anything of concern that is flagged up by the software. Other companies offering anti-radicalisation software products to schools include Future Digital and Securus.

    Impero has produced a glossary of trigger words such as “jihobbyist” (someone who sympathises with jihadi organisations but is not an active member) and “Message to America” (an Islamic State propaganda video series).

    Schools involved with the Impero pilot already have contracts to buy or rent other software from the company, and are trialling the anti-radicalisation software at no extra charge. They are in areas including London, County Durham, Essex, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Yorkshire and Staffordshire.

    A spokeswoman for Impero said: “The Counter-terrorism and Security Act places a duty on schools to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. Since the introduction of the act at the beginning of the year we have had a lot of schools approach us requesting a keyword-detection policy focused on radicalisation.

    “The system may help teachers confirm identification of vulnerable children, or act as an early warning system to help identify children that may be at risk in future. It also provides evidence for teachers and child protection officers to use in order to intervene and support a child in a timely and appropriate manner.

    “It is not about criminalising children, it is about helping schools spot the early warning signs so that risk in relation to an individual can be assessed and measured, and counter-narratives and support can be put in place to help educate children before they potentially become victims of radicalisation.”

    Different schools are interpreting the anti-radicalisation clause in the new counter-terrorism legislation in different ways. Headteachers interviewed by the Guardian said it was a very difficult issue for schools to get involved with.

    Monega primary school in Newham has invited parents of children as young as four to a workshop on 26 June. The invitation states: “Come and join us for this session led by a social worker on how to prevent and detect radicalisation. All parents are welcome.”

    Yahya Birt, a Muslim academic specialising in British Islam, tweeted about the four-year-olds potentially being monitored for radicalisation: “They’re pre-lingual, let alone pre-political. It’s bonkers.”

    Last month there was controversy over a questionnaire circulated to pupils in five primary schools in Waltham Forest, another east London borough with a large Muslim population.

    The questionnaire asked pupils leading questions about their views and beliefs including whether or not they would marry someone from a different religion, whether they would be prepared to hurt someone who made fun of their race or religion and whether they felt God had a purpose for them.

    Waltham Forest council later said the questionnaires would be withdrawn. It said they had been produced by the behavioural insights team, also known as the “nudge unit”, which started life inside 10 Downing Street and is partly government-owned.

    An internal memo circulated to directors of children’s services by the director of the Department for Education’s due diligence and counter-extremism group states that in the wake of the three British Muslim teenagers going to Syria, schools are being offered more support in tackling extremism, including a dedicated helpline for teachers.

    The department is carrying out a review of schools where there is evidence of pupils having links to people who may have travelled to Syria.

    Birt tweeted: “This policy covers about 800,000 Muslims who are under-18 when maybe a couple of dozen of them are with Isis, it’s a sledgehammer for a walnut.”

    Bill Bolloten, an education consultant who provides training to schools in this area, said: “There are growing concerns that many schools are failing to understand what is required under the new act. The prevent duty requires them to respond in ways that are proportionate and appropriate, based on an assessment of genuine risks that children might face in relation to extremism.

    “Workshops for parents on extremism, as well as other activities such as radicalisation questionnaires for children and software that spies on pupils’ internet activity in school, are based on the discredited idea that there are signs of extremism that can be detected in young children.

    “These actions are alarming many parents and may compound a growing climate of mistrust. Schools should reflect and reconsider if these approaches are potentially counter-productive and might damage relationships with the communities they serve.”

    Impero glossary of key words and phrases that its software will flag up

    Jihadi bride A woman convinced that it is her Islamic duty to travel to join a jihadi organisation such as Isis and marry one of its fighters. Searching for this term may indicate vulnerability to radicalisation or support for Islamist extremism.

    John Cantlie British journalist kidnapped and held hostage by Isis since 2012. He appears in several Isis propaganda videos.

    War on Islam Phrase often used by Islamists and jihadis to perpetuate the narrative that the west is at war with all Muslims, which is crucial to their radicalisation and recruitment aims.

    Jihobbyist Someone who sympathises or supports jihadist organisations but does not commit the offence of becoming an active member. Searching for this term may indicate support for jihadism.

    Pogrom An organised massacre or persecution of an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. Searching for this term may indicate support for far-right extremism.

    YODO Acronym for “you only die once”, a jihadi parody of YOLO. Used to promote suicide bombings and recruitment to Isis.

    Storm Front White supremacist neo-nazi organisation.

    Kuffs Arabic term for infidel, hate speech used by Islamists to denote non-Muslims.

    Message to America Isis propaganda video series featuring beheadings of western hostages and threats to kill more.

    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/10/schools-trial-anti-radicalisation-software-pupils-internet
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

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  14. #50
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    CAGE TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST THE CHARITY COMMISSION

    (London, UK) The advocacy group CAGE has today commenced judicial review proceedings against the Charity Commission for what it believes is an unlawful exercise of powers in the wake of the Mohammed Emwazi case and the subsequent pressure exerted by the Commission on charities associated with CAGE.

    After the publicity CAGE received around Emwazi, it claims that the Charity Commission acted outside of its powers by exerting unlawful pressure on charities not to fund or associate with CAGE, despite CAGE not being a charity itself. As a result CAGE is finding it much more difficult to fund its advocacy and charities have been deterred from sharing a platform with it.

    The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust issued a press release stating that they had been pressured by the Charity Commission not to fund CAGE ever again. CAGE also became aware of other charities that were questioned about sharing a platform with them.

    The Charity Commission is exceeding its role as a regulator.

    This is underlined by the announcement in April that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations would review the Commission, because of an “accusation that as appointees of the government of the day they [the commissioners] are in some way politically biased.”

    The perception of political motivations infringes upon the rights of charities in general, who may be chilled into silence by a regulator that is liable to clamp down on them when they do not align with what is seen to be its politics.

    Zoe Nicola of HMA Solicitors said:

    "The statement published by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust clearly states that its decision to rule out any future funding to CAGE regardless of any changing circumstances was due to intense regulatory pressure. Such interference on the part of the Charity Commission was in excess of its powers. These actions curtailed our Client’s freedoms of expression and association and was made unfairly and without any prior notice to our Client. This raises concerns that our Client is being penalised for engaging in a debate and expressing views which may have been unpopular with the government. The actions of the Charity Commission in this instance will have a chilling effect on the ability of third sector and charitable organisations to engage in controversial debates and are counter-productive."

    Ibrahim Mohamoud, CAGE Communications Officer, said:

    “This case is an important test case for the charity sector. At a time when the Commission is being given more powers, it is important that it does not deviate from its crucial role as an impartial regulator and become an instrument of state policy in a political agenda against unpopular causes.”

    “CAGE’s mission is linked to preserving the Rule of Law. It is with this objective in mind that we have taken the decision to ensure the politicisation of the sector is reversed.”

    “Charities must be able to function with a regulator that does not create a climate of fear and undermine the fundamental freedoms of expression and association. In recent years, the Charity Commission appears to be assuming the role of Counter-Terrorism Police, rather than a charity sector regulator.”

    “The best way to hold power to account is to have a strong civil society being able to ask the questions others are scared to ask, and to support difficult causes.”

    “The Charity Commission claims to act in the interests of the public, however public interest should never be dictated by the scaremongering of the mainstream media; this would mean that the rule of the mob was applied rather than the rule of law.”

    http://www.cageuk.org/press-release/cage-take-legal-action-against-charity-commission
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  15. #51
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

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  16. #52
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    How 'British values' are used as a smoke screen for anti-Muslim government policies

    Successive UK governments' commitment to the very 'British values' they use to justify anti-Muslim policies is questionable.

    In light of the debunked Trojan Horse investigation of an alleged "Islamist plot" to take over Birmingham state schools, the passing of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act in February, and the recent announcement by Prime Minister David Cameron of a new Counter-Extremism Bill, the discussion about the Muslim community's acceptance of “British values” has been taking place within many circles of power and influence.

    Amid a climate of increasing Islamophobia and the rise of far-right groups in the UK, Muslims have found themselves in a situation where they are at risk of being labelled "extremists" for supposedly failing to accept “British values” - an arguably ambiguous term that in reality means many things to different people, including non-Muslim Britons.

    Over the past year, Muslim schools, charities, and public speakers have been under immense pressure to subscribe to “British values,” something that is loosely defined but frequently referred to by politicians and the media when labelling large sections of the Muslim community as "extreme".

    Furthermore, when legitimate questions are asked and these “values” are scrutinised by Muslims, in many cases it is perceived by some as an act of disloyalty to Britain.

    ‘What British values?’

    As it stands, the current Tory government has defined “British values” as: belief in democracy, rule of law, individual freedoms and religious tolerance.

    A fortnight ago, I was in central London filming a trailer for an upcoming debate on Islam's compatibility with British values, organised by the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA). I asked about 30 Caucasian UK-born non-Muslims to describe or define “British values” in four words.

    Of course, under no circumstances can 30 people qualify as a significant quantitative specimen for serious research. Additionally, my interviews lacked any qualitative meaning, as I did not ask the public the simple follow-up question: "What do you mean by that?" - considering words are vehicles to definitions. Nevertheless, their responses were indicative of the confusion surrounding the concept of British values.

    To my surprise, "I don't know" and "What British values?" were the most common answers, along with "pride," "patriotism" and "honesty". There were a few who stated "tolerance," "equality," and "freedom of speech," but not a single person mentioned two values stated by the government in their answer, let alone all four.

    Naturally, these responses got me thinking - how absurd it is for the government to have such a rigid definition as a criterion to dictate who or what an "extremist" is in legislation such as the CTS Act and the proposed Counter-Extremism Bill, yet white non-Muslims who were born in this country failed to include those four values in their responses.

    Thus, enforcing a specific definition on an entire religious minority poses a number of problems.

    The cultural and socio-political implications aside, successive British governments' commitment to these very values are questionable. Let me briefly explain why:

    • Democracy - Like its numerous predecessors, if the current British government claims to be a global "champion of democracy," it is rather disconcerting when it supports the most undemocratic and dictatorial regimes across the Muslim world; President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi (Egypt), Sheikh Hasina (Bangladesh), Islam Karimov (Uzbekistan), the Gulf sheikdoms and Israel, to name but a few. The aforementioned regimes are infamous for their brutality against its citizens and the suppression of political freedoms.

    • Rule of Law - The MPs’ expenses scandal and the delayed investigation behind a child sex ring at the heart of the political establishment are two prime examples of how senior politicians are above the law, and in many cases are reprimanded lightly compared with laymen for comparable wrongdoings.

    • Religious tolerance - The CTS Act, the proposed Counter-Extremism Bill and the Government's Prevent strategy clearly demonstrate how major aspects of normative Islam cannot be tolerated and is consistently referred to as "extreme". The irony is that everyone can discuss and debate Shariah law, Islamic State, jihad and Syria, except imams, scholars and mosques - unless they're peddling the establishment's narrative.

    • Individual freedoms - Proposed Extremism Disruptive Orders, Mosque Closure Orders, the Draft Communication Data Bill, banning Muslim speakers from universities, and pressuring venues to cancel Islamic events, are all examples of how individual liberties such as the freedom of speech exist, except for those who oppose or criticise the Government.

    Monitoring people's online activities unrelated to violent criminality, spying on Muslim pupils as young as five, and acting as “thought police” are basically Draconian attempts to silence political dissent by over-playing the fear factor of national security to pass legislation.

    Taking the above into consideration, one cannot help but humbly advise the government to practise what it preaches.

    Islam and British values

    British Muslims, predominantly from the Indian subcontinent, have been living in peace since they arrived in the UK as economic migrants after World War Two. It was only after the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent “War on Terror” invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq did Britain face a real terror threat, albeit an arguably small one. Anglo-American foreign policy has been the main catalyst of most, if not all, the risks this country faces from international or home-grown terrorism.

    Undoubtedly, an ultra-minority of Muslims have adopted fringe theological methodologies and positions pertaining to citizenship and warfare, but this should not be conflated with normative Islam, which is intentionally misconstrued by policymakers and neoconservative think-tanks when advocating the academically and empirically flawed “conveyor belt” theory.

    Inevitably, there are common values that Muslims share with Britain and the whole of humanity in general, such as kindness, politeness, giving charity, and looking after the elderly, sick and needy. However, Islam's ontological foundations and world view are unique compared to all other belief systems.

    Therefore, it is imperative to allow open debate to take place around Islam's compatibility with “British values,” both on a grassroots and policymaking level, because failing to subscribe to the current definition set out by the government leaves people exposed to being labelled an "extremist".

    If dialogue around this topic amongst many others is censored, the worrying Orwellian shift that Britain is steadily moving towards can lead to animosity and resentment towards the Muslim community, due to a lack of understanding and fair representation.

    http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/how-british-values-are-used-as-a-smokescreen-for-anti-muslim-government-policies

    Heres a funny video on the state of British democracy

    Thank heavens we are not a democracy

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  17. #53
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    No surprise as David Cameron scapegoats Muslims for his own government's failings

    Western governments try to justify their failure to secure the Middle East militarily by blaming the Muslim community as a whole.

    David Cameron seems to like travelling to Europe to make speeches attacking Muslims. He did it when the racist EDL held a major anti-Muslim demo in Luton back in 2011.

    Then he was in Bavaria, a deeply Catholic and conservative state in Germany, calling for Muslims to embrace British values.

    Now he's done it again. On the first full day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Cameron has used a speech at a security conference in Slovakia today to berate any Muslims who buy in to a critique of the west.

    According to him, this stokes the violent extremism which has seen the rise of ISIS, the flurry of individuals leaving Britain and other countries to join them, and the growth of terrorism worldwide.

    Cameron says that blame for these actions needs to be laid at the door of the individual carrying them out. This is of course true in the final instance; people react differently to the same circumstances and most people who, for example, oppose foreign wars, do not end up directly going to fight in those wars or becoming terrorists. But it is highly disingenuous in two respects.

    The first is that Cameron makes the link yet again between what he deems non violent extremists and violent extremists. In fact this is the whole thrust of government policy on the question. Violent extremism only happens because non violent extremists pave the way for their more violent counterparts. He talks of British Muslims 'buying into' or 'quietly condoning'

    No doubt most in the Muslim community in Britain will find ISIS and its tactics abhorrent. But no doubt too that many Muslims - as well as those non-Muslims in Britain who have long opposed government policy - will reject the idea that they have to give up their beliefs in the spurious hope that this might defeat terrorism.

    We should remember that opposition to wars, Islamophobia, attacks on civil liberties and Israeli policy over Palestine, has not been from terrorist groups but from a wide range of organisations which have campaigned over these issues. They have included Muslims and non-Muslims.

    It is the failure of successive governments to recognise the widespread opposition to its policies and the disastrous consequences of them that has created the situation we now have.

    That Cameron blames groups and individuals within the Muslim community for his government's failings is neither surprising nor new. Since Tony Blair helped launch the war on terror in 2001 terrorism has grown on a massive scale. While western governments lack a strategy for securing the Middle East militarily, they try to justify their errors by blaming the Muslim community as a whole - and by implication the non-Muslims who have worked with them in organisations such as Stop the War.

    Yet it was the former head of MI5, Eliza Manningham Buller, who admitted that she had told government ministers that war in Iraq would increase terrorism.

    The vicious circle we now find of wars, Islamophobia and attacks on civil liberties is not preventing terrorism but exacerbating it.

    The government's extensive plans for spying on and scapegoating the Muslim community will do little to alter this, but will increase racism and develop an Orwellian thought crime.

    At times of crisis and austerity, scapegoating of minorities is a means of creating new fears about real or imagined threats which can divert from the common threats our government is at present issuing towards working class people.

    Cameron's speech is of course aimed at doing this, not looking for real solutions to real problems.

    Those of us marching tomorrow for an alternative to austerity and war will also be speaking out against this scapegoating. The different issues are increasingly linked and need a united response.
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  18. #54
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    The five pillars of Islamophobia and the roots of anti-Muslim racism

    THE STATUS of Muslims in the west is under threat. The increased prevalence of anti Muslim hate crime is only one of the more visible consequences.

    In the UK, Muslim schoolchildren are suffering a ‘backlash’ of abuse, according to the teaching unions; Muslim women are the victims of more than half of Islamophobic attacks, says Tell MAMA.

    Though violent crimes against Muslims are understandably a key issue for Muslims and the anti-racist movement, it would be a mistake to think that Islamophobia is just a problem of racism by a small minority on the streets, or those on the fringes of politics.

    In fact it is deeply embedded in our politics and society, and a more serious problem than many writers have recognised. Moreover, while most accounts of Islamophobia suggest that anti-Muslim racism is simply a matter of prejudice, which may have social consequences, it needs to be understood as more than a problem of racist ideas.

    Obviously these are a key part of Islamophobia but to be effective such ideas need to be practically developed—to be actively produced, spread and institutionalised in new policies and practices. Anti-Muslim racism is sustained by what we call the ‘five pillars’ of Islamophobia.

    Legitimate targets?

    The first and most important is the institutions of the state—most notably the sprawling ‘counter-terrorism’ apparatus, the key nexus of institutions and practices which targets ‘extremists’ and those said to have been ‘radicalised’.

    The imprecision with which these concepts are defined and operationalised in official discourse, together with the routine practices of the police and intelligence services, means that many thousands of people, including non-Muslims, are regarded as a legitimate targets for suspicion, surveillance and intelligence-gathering.

    Some academic authors see the state as progressive, or at least neutral, and capable of helping challenge anti-Muslim racism by creating spaces for Muslim cultural and civic engagement.

    But in our view the state is not neutral. Counter-terrorism policy disadvantages Muslims (and others) through exceptional legislation, pre-emptive incapacitation and intelligence and surveillance. And the counter-terrorism apparatus has spread from its traditional home in the police and intelligence services to occupy almost every branch of the state, from schools and universities to libraries.

    A relatively new front in the war to drive Muslims from the public sphere is the NGO sector. The Charity Commission, headed by the neo-conservative Lord Shawcross, has presided over a significant increase in investigations of Muslim charities. The think tank Claystone reported that the Charity Commission had marked 55 British charities with new issue code ‘extremism and radicalisation’, without the organisations’ knowledge, and that Muslim charities were disproportionately affected.

    Further right

    The other four pillars of Islamophobia are social or political movements which bolster the state or push it further right—social movements ‘from above’, as the sociologists Laurence Cox and Gunvald Nilsen put it. By this they mean the ‘collective agency of dominant groups’.

    The first is the most well known—the far right. Its traditional representatives in neo-fascist parties have all taken an anti-Muslim turn, but they have been joined in recent years by a plethora of new parties (such as the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People’s Party and UKIP in the UK), street movements such as the English Defence League, PEGIDA in Germany (and the UK, Austria, Denmark, Norway and Sweden) and the ‘counter-jihad movement’, which operates in almost every EU country, as well as in the US.

    The far right is not neatly bounded and there are all sorts of overlaps with other strands of the social movements from above, which are themselves interpenetrated. They include the neo-conservative movement, strongly active in the EU as well as in the US, its country of origin; the Zionist movement; and a number of left/liberal currents such the pro-war or ‘decent’ left. All three are transnational movements from above and have connections to groups further to the right, as well as to the more mainstream conservative movement and indeed right-wing, neo-liberal think tanks.

    These social movements, though divided on some matters, do work together—in combination with the state—to produce, reproduce and enact anti-Muslim racism, in the process putting in place the policy frameworks and practical arrangements which ensure the subordination of ordinary Muslims.

    Take the neo-conservative Henry Jackson Society, a think tank which brings together key US and UK neo-conservatives, including William Kristol and Richard Perle. Among the key financial backers of the HJS has been the Conservative peer Stanley Kalms, the former treasurer of the Conservative Party and life president of DSG International (formerly Dixons). Kalms is a prominent member of Conservative Friends of Israel, though in 2009 he flirted with UKIP. He has supported the Henry Jackson Society and its predecessor the Centre for Social Cohesion through his Traditional Alternatives Foundation and the Stanley Kalms Foundation, and his links with more mainstream conservatism are illustrated by his financial backing for the Institute for Economic Affairs and the Centre for Social Justice.

    Kalms appears to have quite ‘radical’ views on Muslims and Islam. According to Tony Lerman, the writer and ‘lapsed’ Zionist, Kalms was present at a meeting on 17 November 2006 where he said: ‘Most Muslims didn’t want to integrate ... Ultimately they would line up behind the fundamentalists.’

    Social movements from above, including the far right and elements of the neo-conservative and Zionist movements, play an important active role in fostering anti-Muslim racism.

    We will not turn back the tide of Islamophobia only by confronting the threat of UKIP in politics, or the EDL and other parts of the transnational ‘counter-jihad movement’ on the streets. We also need to focus our attention on elements of the (also transnational) neo-conservative and Zionist movements which provide information, ‘research’ and advocacy which can drag the state and politics to the right and sharpen Islamophobic polices, as we have seen in the UK with the revision of the ‘Prevent’ programme in 2010 (drawing on the material of the neo-conservative Centre for Social Cohesion) and in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015.

    Dissent criminalised

    Most importantly, we need to understand that it is the state itself and its machinery of surveillance and repression that is at the forefront of ensuring that Muslims are collectively pushed to the edge of public life with extremely serious short-, medium- and long term consequences for democratic politics.

    The intention seems clear: dissent, whether by Muslim organisations, social movements or trades unions, is criminalised to protect our rulers from pressure from below.

    It is a sad commentary on the state of hysteria about Islam in the UK today that even documenting evidence on Islamophobia is seen as evidence of ‘extremism’ or ‘radicalisation’. Simply in writing this article we have potentially entered what the police have called the ‘pre-criminal space’, which is enough to warrant unwelcome attention from the intelligence and policing agencies—never mind those of conservative newspaper columnists.

    http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/the-five-pillars-of-islamophobia-and-the-roots-of-anti-muslim-racism
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  20. #55
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    So in a nutshell it is just a fight between the Jews and Muslims in Europe and I think the locals are getting very sick of it. At least the ones that can see through all this.
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  21. #56
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    Dismantling Cameron’s claim that Islam is the cause of “Radicalisation”

    On the 19th June 2015, in a security conference in Slovakia, David Cameron echoed the words of Tony Blair and Charles Clarke ten years ago when they highlighted the ideological causes of terrorism and the need to target the “Islamist extremist ideology”. In his words Cameron said “The cause is ideological. It is an Islamist extremist ideology, one that says the West is bad, that democracy is wrong, that women are inferior, that homosexuality is evil.”

    Recent incidents such as three missing Bradford sisters who purportedly tried to get into Syria with their nine children, after their visit to Saudi Arabia, the announcement of Talha Asmal who was named as the ‘youngest suicide bomber’ in the UK and Kenya and a Brit who was among 11 al-Shabab gunmen killed in a failed attack on a military base, have placed the Muslim community under the spotlight again, with complex questions being simplified to a “radicalisation” narrative. An argument that ignores political context and targets Islam as the root cause of their actions.

    What lures women and young Muslims into war zone areas such as Syria and Iraq? Is there a conveyor belt of terrorism which encourages young Muslims to go to war torn areas? What role does identity play? What age do people becomes radicalised? Are those that go abroad the victim or the perpetrators?

    These deeply layered and complicated questions are simplified to the “theory of radicalisation”. A theory which has justified the wholesale surveillance of the Muslim community via the “Prevent” program, the recent CTS Act and the recently proposed “Control Orders” that would allow the government to ban groups, launch Extremism Disruption Orders and handover more powers to the police such as the revocation of citizenship, data snooping and other draconian measures that are on the verge of turning Britain into a police state.

    The Theory of Radicalisation

    Two weeks after 7/7, on the 16th July 2005, Tony Blair made his infamous speech in which he described that the sole cause behind the attacks was an “evil ideology“. He then went on to describe what some aspects of this evil ideology consisted of, “the establishment of effectively Taleban states and Sharia law in the Arab world en route to one caliphate of all Muslim nations.”

    These points were later echoed by his then Home Secretary Charles Clarke on the 5th October 2005, “What drives these people on is ideas… However there can be no negotiation about the re-creation of the Caliphate; there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Shariah law; there can be no negotiation about the suppression of equality between the sexes; there can be no negotiation about the ending of free speech. These values are fundamental to our civilisation and are simply not up for negotiation.”

    In 2009 the British government considered plans which would have formalized the Blair narrative and considered ideas such as a belief in the applicability of Sharia law in contemporary times, the concept of belonging to a single Muslim community internationally (the Ummah), the legitimacy of resisting attack and occupation through the use of force (jihad), and the aspiration of living under an Islamic caliphate as key identifiers of “extremists.”

    The spelling out of “extremist” ideas was explicitly stated in the leaked draft Government report known as CONTEST 2. The Guardian newspaper reported on 17/2/2009 that; “According to a draft of the strategy, Contest 2 as it is known in Whitehall, people would be considered as extremists if:

    • They advocate a caliphate, a pan-Islamic state encompassing many countries.
    • They promote Sharia law.
    • They believe in jihad, or armed resistance, anywhere in the world. This would include armed resistance by Palestinians against the Israeli military.
    • They argue that Islam bans homosexuality and that it is a sin against Allah.
    • They fail to condemn the killing of British soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
    • In the final version of the Contest 2 report they omitted these points but this narrative was, and still is, consistently raised in the media by a range of “counter-extremism experts” and think-tanks, who argue that it is indeed “Islamic extremism” that leads to terrorism divorced of any political context.



    The Radicalisation Theory is a Myth

    The argument that terrorists are purely motivated by the Islamic ideology and irrespective of the political circumstance would inevitably undertake violent acts, conveniently absolves the West of any policies or actions they have undertaken. It also does not stand-up to academic scrutiny. Take for example the prominent terrorism expert, John Horgan. He was the director of the International Centre for the study of terrorism in the University of Pennsylvania from 2007-2013. He said that “The idea that radicalization causes terrorism is perhaps the greatest myth alive today in terrorism research … [First], the overwhelming majority of people who hold radical beliefs do not engage in violence. And second, there is increasing evidence that people who engage in terrorism don’t necessarily hold radical beliefs.”

    French sociologist Olivier Roy argues that “the process of violent radicalisation has little to do with religious practice, while radical theology, as salafisme, does not necessarily lead to violence.” The “leap into terrorism” is not religiously inspired but better seen as sharing “many factors with other forms of dissent, either political (the ultra-left), or behavioural: the fascination for sudden suicidal violence as illustrated by the paradigm of random shootings in schools (the ‘Columbine syndrome’)”

    Marc Sageman, a former CIA Operations Officer, who previously held a position that supported this theory but then changed his position, suggested that governments should “stop being brainwashed by this notion of radicalisation, there is no such thing. Some people when they’re young acquire extreme views, many of them just grow out of them. Do not overreact-you’ll just create worse problems.”

    Mark Sedgewick, a British Historian specialising in terrorism explained that “The concept of radicalisation emphasizes the individual and, to some extent, the ideology and the group, and significantly deemphasizes the wider circumstances – the “root causes” that it became so difficult to talk about after 9/11, and that are still often not brought into analyses. So long as the circumstances that produce Islamist radicals’ declared grievances are not taken into account, it is inevitable that the Islamist radical will often appear as a “rebel without a cause”

    Internal government reports leaked to the Sunday Telegraph in 2010 concluded that they “do not believe that it is accurate to regard radicalisation in this country as a linear ‘conveyor belt’ moving from grievance, through radicalisation, to violence,” and that the “thesis seems to both misread the radicalisation process and to give undue weight to ideological factors.” So according to the government’s own officials and experts, suggesting that “Islamist extremist” aspirations (which are part of normative Islam) are a gateway to terrorism is incorrect. Perpetrators may hold these specific beliefs have not been proven to be a causal factor of violence, and such beliefs are similarly shared by millions of other Muslims globally as well as many living in the West.

    The conveyor-belt offers a simplistic narrative, which is presented to wider society as the answer and legitimises draconian policies such as the Counter Terrorism Act 2015, the Prevent agenda and the proposed control orders.

    This type of narrative was popularised after 2005, notably by Michael Gove’s Celsius 7/7 and Ed Husain’s “The Islamist.” Unfortunately, the waves of erroneous opinions offered by politicians, media commentators, “counter-extremism” experts and self-professed “ex-extremists” certainly do not stand up to any academic scrutiny.

    On 12th June 2008, the MI5 concluded that there is no easy way to identify those who become involved in terrorism in Britain. This was after a classified internal research document on radicalisation seen by the Guardian. The sophisticated analysis was based on hundreds of case studies by the security service, and stated clearly that there is no single pathway to violent extremism. The report concluded that it is not possible to draw up a typical profile of the “British terrorist” and challenged the radicalisation process espoused by the government.

    While both the Blair narrative and the convenient “conveyor-belt” theory may satisfy the need for explanation, the British Government struggle to admit a stronger link to Western foreign and domestic policy. Therefore this further alienates Muslims who have legitimate foreign policy grievances, as well as sowing distrust and suspicion of Muslims among the wider population.

    Prevent is a failure

    Ignoring the outcry from academics, the government implemented “Prevent” anyway. The Prevent programme was the manifestation of the theory of radicalisation which was implemented originally by the Labour government in 2007 and then reviewed by the Coalition government. And as expected it has been widely criticised by the Muslim community throughout its implementation.

    Take for example, Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent until 2013 said many Muslims did not trust the “Prevent” strategy and many saw it as a form of spying, he described Prevent as a “Toxic brand”.

    Professor Ted Cantle from the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo) said “Instead of gaining the support of Muslim communities, the previous Prevent Strategy alienated the majority.”

    Dr Matthew Wilkinson, director of the think-tank ‘Curriculum for Cohesion’ said about Prevent that it “has been largely unsuccessful”

    Yet instead of abandoning the program the government has been insistent on having a hard-line approach by now enforcing it onto the public sector via the CTS Act. The CTS Act which takes effect from the 1st July 2015, reaches into every aspect of the lives of Muslims in Britain. The public sector will be used to spy on Muslim communities.

    This includes Muslims children who are identified as being ‘at-risk’ referred through Channel. The new statutory guidance for Channel under the Prevent scheme from April 2015 describes the Channel programme as a ‘multi-agency approach to identify and provide support to individuals who are at risk of being drawn into terrorism’. It operates within sectors and institutions, such as schools, hospitals and nurseries where they believe there are risks of radicalisation. The police are the first point of contact for those referred under the programme before each case is presented to a local panel.

    Prevent is not about national security but about ideological indoctrination

    The truth about “Prevent” is that it is a programme designed not to catch terrorists, but to enforce the secular liberal belief system and values upon the next generation of the Muslim Community.

    Take for example the recent questionnaire to identify possible children who are at risk of radicalisation from a primary school in London, it had questions such as “Do you agree or disagree that;

    • God has a purpose for me?
    • I believe my religion is the only correct one?
    • It’s okay to marry someone from a different race or religion?
    • People should be free to say what they like, even if it offends others?”
    • These are questions which are trying to ascertain if the beliefs of Muslim children are in concordance to secular liberal versions of equality, plurality and tolerance and thus whether they are on a path of “radicalisation” that would lead to violence.



    Mak Chisty, a police commander recently said that we need to move into the “private space” and mentioned what he sees as signs of radicalisation such as not celebrating Christmas, change of attire from Western clothes, stopping drinking and even not shopping at Marks and Spencer’s! Again “extremism” is framed here as actions that don’t conform to liberal culture.

    This is also why, the “Channel” program from “Prevent” disproportionality targets Muslims. Since 2007, when Channel was introduced, 153 children under 11, another 690 aged 12–15 and 554 aged 16–17 have been referred to the programme. The religious affiliation of the 2000+ people that were referred showed that from 2007-10, 67% of those referred were Muslim, from 2012-13, 57% were Muslim. Bearing in mind that Muslims makeup less than 5% of the population!

    Simplicity is not a replacement for truth

    The Government’s “theory of radicalisation” is criminalising normative Islamic beliefs such as Islam’s views on homosexuality, the role of men and women in creating a stable family home, belief in the Shariah and Khilafah for the Muslim world. Together with the barrage of attacks on the Muslim community by the media and far right groups (taking the lead from mainstream politicians) many Muslims feel isolated and vulnerable living in Britain. Their concerns against British foreign policy is delegitimised and, according to Cameron, it is “condoning terrorism.”

    This is leading to an environment in which mosques and Imams are fearful in addressing legitimate concerns and directing the feelings of the Muslim community with the correct concepts of Islam. Thus isolated individuals may undertake criminal and unislamic actions to challenge these perceived unjust policies. Other isolated individuals may make the mistaken assumption that ISIS represents an Islamic state even though they are far from it. Without the ability to present the correct Islamic understanding of the Khilafah, the application of Shariah law and the rules of Jihad the Muslim community are left feeling angered and targeted without Islamic guidance. Thus some individuals may act based on ignorance rather than the guidance of Islam.

    Therefore the government’s targeting of legitimate Islamic beliefs and silencing Muslims’ opposition to Western foreign policy will only exacerbate the problem and not solve it. The government may well prefer this silencing of the correct method for revival and challenging Western policy as this serves their agenda to distract wider society to their continued interference in the Muslim world (which is the source of instability). Indeed critiquing the flawed government narrative of “radicalisation” and presenting the correct method for revival would undermine both domestic and foreign policy of Britain exposing the real agenda behind their interference which is to secure their economic and political interests and not to create a stable, just and peaceful world.

    In this difficult and hostile environment Muslims must not become silent, succumbing to the intimidation by the British government. We must continue to demonstrate the correct Islamic concepts to guide our community to adhere to Islam and challenge the draconian and unjust policies of Britain whether domestic or foreign.

    http://www.hizb.org.uk/current-affairs/dismantling-camerons-claim-that-islam-is-the-cause-of-radicalisation
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  22. #57
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    How Cameron's open war against Muslims feeds terrorism at home and abroad

    THE ANTI-MUSLIM drumbeat has become deafening across the western world. As images of atrocities by the jihadi terror group Isis multiply online, and a steady trickle of young Europeans and North Americans head to Syria and Iraq to join them, Muslim communities are under siege.

    Last week David Cameron accused British Muslims of “quietly condoning” the ideology that drives Isis sectarian brutality, normalising hatred of “British values”, and blaming the authorities for the “radicalisation” of those who go to fight for it.

    It was too much for Sayeeda Warsi, the former Conservative party chair, who condemned the prime minister’s “misguided emphasis” on “Muslim community complicity”. He risked “further alienating” the large majority of Muslims fighting the influence of such groups, she warned.

    Even Charles Farr, the hawkish counter-terrorism mandarin at the Home Office, balked. Perhaps fewer than 100 Britons were currently fighting with Isis, he said, and “we risk labelling Muslim communities as somehow intrinsically extremist”.

    But Cameron and his neoconservative allies are preparing the ground for the government’s next onslaught. The target will not be terrorism, but “non-violent extremism”. Next month, from nursery schools to optometrists, health services to universities, all will be legally obliged to monitor students and patients for any sign of “extremism” or “radicalisation”.

    The new powers represent a level of embedded security surveillance in public life unprecedented in peacetime. We already know from the government’s Prevent programme the chilling impact of such mass spying on schools, where Muslim pupils have been reported for speaking out in favour of Palestinian rights or against the role of British troops in Afghanistan.

    But the “counter-extremism” bill announced in the Queen’s Speech is about to take the anti-Muslim clampdown a whole stage further.

    The plans include banning orders for non-violent individuals and organisations whose politics are considered unacceptable; physical restriction orders for non-violent individuals deemed “harmful”; powers to close mosques; and vetting controls on broadcasters accused of airing extremist material. It’s censorship under any other name.

    That was the view of Sajid Javid, then culture secretary, in a leaked letter to the prime minister earlier this year. But Cameron shows every sign of pressing ahead with what amounts to a full-blown assault on basic liberties. Most ludicrously, the new powers are defended in the name of “British values”, including “individual liberty” and “mutual respect and tolerance”.

    But as became clear in the aftermath of the murderous Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo earlier this year, we are not all Charlie when it comes to freedom of speech. Anti-extremism powers will be used overwhelmingly against Muslims, rather than, say, non-Muslim homophobes and racists who have little interest in mutual respect and tolerance.

    And they will fail, as their earlier incarnations have done, to discourage the small minority drawn to terrorism at home or jihadi campaigns abroad. Government ministers claim such violence is driven by “ideology” rather than injustice, grievance or its own policies. But, given that they refuse to speak to any significant Muslim organisation they don’t agree with or fund, perhaps it’s not surprising to find them in thrall to an ideology, neoconservatism, of their own.

    Any other explanation for the terror threat would in any case implicate the government and its predecessors. In reality, it shouldn’t be so hard to understand why a small section of young alienated Muslims are attracted to fight in Syria and Iraq with Isis and other such groups.

    Jihadi “ideology” has been around for a long time. But there were no terror attacks in Britain before US and British forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and those behind every violent attack or terror plot have cited western intervention in the Muslim world as their motivation.

    Isis has a different appeal to al-Qaida. It has taken huge stretches of territory using naked terror, destroyed borders and set up a self-proclaimed caliphate. In the Middle East it presents itself as the defender of Sunnis in a convulsive sectarian war. For a few young marginalised western Muslims, such groups can offer the illusion of a fight against tyranny and a powerful sense of identity.

    But add in relentless media hostility, rampant Islamophobia, state surveillance and harassment of Muslim communities, and such alienation can only spread.

    In the past year, we’ve had the “Trojan Horse” Birmingham schools plot that never was, the ousting of an elected Muslim mayor of Tower Hamlets by a judge – including on grounds that he had exercised “undue spiritual influence” on Muslims – and evidence of an increasing level of anti-Muslim attacks. Islamophobia now far outstrips hostility to any other religion or ethnic group.

    Ministers and their media allies downplay the role of “foreign policy” in Muslim radicalisation, against all the evidence.

    By foreign policy, they mean multiple western invasions and occupations of Muslim states, torture and state kidnapping on a global scale, and support for dictatorships across the Arab and Muslim world.

    That includes Saudi Arabia, of course, which shares much of Isis’s “ideology” and practices; and Egypt, whose ex-military leader, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, overthrew the elected president in 2013 and is soon to be welcomed to Downing Street.

    Isis is itself the direct product of the US and British occupation and destruction of Iraq, and both countries back armed rebel groups fighting in Syria – as they did in Libya. So no wonder would-be jihadis get confused about who is on whose side. Western Isis volunteers are a disaster for Syria and Iraq, but so far they haven’t carried out return attacks at home.

    That could of course change, not least as the government criminalises dissent, brands conservative religiosity “extremist” and, in the formulation of ministers, “quietly condones” Islamophobia.

    The British government has long fed terrorism with its warmaking abroad. Now it’s also fuelling it with its scapegoating of Muslims at home.

    http://stopwar.org.uk/news/how-david-cameron-s-open-war-against-muslims-feeds-terrorism-at-home-and-abroad
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  23. #58
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    CAMERON WILL NOT ENGAGE WITH THE ONLY PEOPLE ABLE TO STOP THE IS NARRATIVE #TUNISIA

    Moazzam Begg, Outreach Director at CAGE writes this piece for Middle East Eye following the recent attacks in Tunisia. He states it was a Western backed authoritarian government in Tunisia that suppressed Islam and aided the rise of groups such as the Islamic State

    In 2010, when street-vendor Tarek Bouazizi self-immolated on a Tunis street protesting his abuse by police he couldn’t have known that he had ignited the “Arab spring”, which would remove the old dictators and, ultimately, lead to the rise of IS, that in turn would direct attacks on tourists in his homeland.

    Detailing his intended reaction to the shootings in Tunisia that killed more than 30 British citizens, Prime Minister David Cameron asserted in the Telegraph:

    “…ours must be a full-spectrum response – a response at home and abroad; in the immediate aftermath and far into the future.”

    This militaristic language, borrowed straight from the US Department of Defence term “full-spectrum dominance” is bold in its aims, unapologetic of its consequences.

    No one can dispute the Prime Minister’s assertion that the killings were barbaric. But what was the motive – the mens rea behind these acts? Was it solely down to a twisted understanding of the Islamic concept of caliphate and jihad? Certainly that expounds the claim to moral justification behind evidently immoral acts. But if we want to meaningfully work to prevent such things in future we need to ask why, not just how.

    Shortly after World War I much of the Ottoman Caliphate was dismembered and occupied by Britain. Several client Arab states were created, one of them Iraq. In 1920, resentful locals rose up against their British occupiers. The uprising was quelled, but only after a fledgling British Royal Air Force used poisonous gas and indiscriminate airpower against its victims. The die was cast in Iraqi blood.

    In 1991, Britain played a major role in Operation Desert Storm, the US-led assault during which more bombs were dropped on Iraq than the whole of World War II.

    In 2003, as part of another US-led coalition, Britain invaded Iraq on the basis of torture evidence and fabricated intelligence. Even as US President George Bush claimed “mission accomplished” Iraqi resistance in the form of localised militias, Baathists and incarnations of Al-Qaeda found unity of purpose not just in battle but in the infamous torture centres of Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca. Here, the once diametrically opposed Baathists [secular Arab socialists] and Islamic fighters met and exchanged ideas that were to erupt in the form of IS.

    At the end of British combat operations in 2009, Prime Minster Gordon Brown said:

    "Today Iraq is a success story. We owe much of that to the efforts of British troops…Britain can be proud of our legacy that we leave there."

    The coalition left Nouri al-Maliki, a pro-Iranian Shia, in power. Five years later, following a series of humiliating defeats against Maliki’s forces, IS declared the return of the caliphate.

    When Britain joined yet another US-led coalition to bomb IS in Iraq and Syria last year, it did so in the knowledge that British citizens were in peril and held hostage. European nations and Turkey successfully negotiated the release of all their hostages. However, Britain and the US chose to increase the bombing campaign against IS instead of negotiate. Consequently, the hostages were executed. Bombing IS, without pause, it seems, was more essential than saving American and British citizens.

    Britain has already carried out 300 airstrikes on targets in Syria and Iraq; the US, 6,000. Cameron explained to the BBC how “British aircraft are already delivering the second largest number of airstrikes over Iraq, where ISIL (IS) has taken hold”. If history has taught this country anything it is that more bombing will produce more insecurity – for everyone. Cameron plans an increase.

    Cameron told BBC Radio 4 that IS as an existential threat to the UK, which is the “struggle of our generation”. But Britain is threatened by IS because of its sordid history it in the region. IS, however, poses a far greater threat to the Arab and Muslim world.

    Ahrar al-Sham - part of the Islamic Front coalition - and Al-Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front are the largest, most effective opposition forces in Syria. They have been at the forefront in the fight against IS. Thousands of their members have been killed in battle, tortured, beheaded and crucified. Despite Al Nusra’s confirmation that Syria would not be used as a launchpad for attacks on the West both groups have been bombed by coalition forces.

    Arguably the most credible voices against IS have been Islamic clerics traditionally associated with Al-Qaeda. These include Jordanian scholars Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada. Cameron’s government fought very hard to deport the latter from Britain where he had been imprisoned on the basis of secret evidence, without charge, for over a decade.

    In the end, Abu Qatada opted to return to Jordan, of his own accord, where he was acquitted of terrorism charges against him. During and after his imprisonment in the UK and Jordan Abu Qatada made repeated calls for the release of British aid workers and journalists held by militant groups – including IS. He declared their consequent murders unlawful and subsequently issued scathing fatwa [religious edicts] denouncing IS:

    "This group [IS] does not have the authority to rule all Muslims and their declaration [the caliphate] applies to no-one but themselves. Its threats to kill opponents, sidelining of other groups and violent way of fighting opponents constitute a great sin, reflecting the reality of the group."

    Cameron must be wondering how many young Britons would have joined IS if Abu Qatada made these statements from the UK instead of Jordan?

    Britain already has more anti-terrorism laws and measures in operation than at any other time in her history. Cameron is going to support the revival of previously failed attempts to pass the “snoopers charter” and the new extremism bill. Following the attacks in Tunisia he’s likely to succeed.

    In his full-spectrum plan to tackle IS, Cameron wants to support weak governments against the threat of terrorism. Islam had been suppressed for decades in Tunisia. It is no surprise extremism is rife there or that the largest numbers of foreigners with IS are Tunisians. Cameron has the duty to protect his citizens and work with others in trying to achieve that, but he would do well to note that it was authoritarian Western-backed governments that, in the name of fighting terrorism, harassed, imprisoned and tortured their own people until they finally had enough.

    But why did Seifeddine Rezguie kill 38 innocent tourists? Warped as his ideas must have been, he saw the tourists as representatives of Britain. Britain that had wanted to destroy the caliphate past, and, the caliphate present. The only ones who can successfully challenge the IS narrative, however, are the only ones the government will not engage with.

    http://www.cageuk.org/article/cameron-will-not-engage-only-people-able-stop-narrative-tunisia
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  24. #59
    سيف الله's Avatar Full Member
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update

    CAGE PUBLISHES LEAKED PREVENT TRAINING DVD

    (London, UK) A source has leaked crucial elements of the PREVENT training module WRAP to CAGE and now for the first time, and in the interest of greater public debate and scrutiny, CAGE is publishing the material.

    The DVD clips can be downloaded from these links (here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

    The training DVD makes several simplistic assumptions that are empirically untested, ineffective and raises more questions than it seeks to answer. This may increase the likelihood that ‘extremism’ will be over-reported contributing to growing islamophobia.

    The controversial PREVENT policy comes into force from today amid increasing criticism this week from universities, the National Union of Teachers and Conservative Peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi.

    More than 300,000 public sector workers have already been provided this training and thousands more will be required to attend.

    CAGE has previously obtained testimonies from concerned public sector staff that have been required to attend the training.

    Despite its wide ranging roll out, there has been a cloak of secrecy surrounding the operations of PREVENT as well as its training. This lack of transparency, and PREVENT’s broad potential to criminalise citizens based on thought, is detrimental for a free and fair society.

    CAGE spokesperson, Ibrahim Mohamoud noted the following concerns:

    “The DVD makes crude comparisons between extremism and addiction and fails to discuss the causes of politically motivated violence. There is a distinct lack of authentic community voices in the film, making it one-sided and out of touch with reality.”

    “This will lead to further religious profiling and overzealous reporting, which work to increase political motivated violence, rather than allowing the open debate and dialogue that counter it.”

    “The assumption that a few videos can be used to train public sectors workers in a complex issue such as political motivated violence is naive and dangerous. The Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which has made it legally binding for public sector workers to report "extremist" behaviours, combined with this poor training is negatively impacting the very communities that are required to support and help prevent political motivated violence."

    “CAGE calls upon the government to abolish PREVENT; it has failed to deliver of the past 8 years, it is discredited, it is toxic and it is alienating the very community that is key to stopping political motivated violence. Questions need to be asked as to why such large amount of public funds have been invested into a programme that appears to be heavily scripted and built on flawed assumptions?”

    http://www.cageuk.org/press-release/cage-publishes-leaked-prevent-training-dvd
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  26. #60
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    Re: Syria, Gaza and the Criminalisation of Islam

    Salaam

    Another update


    Fighting the Prevent agenda


    From Trojan Horse plots to tales of children going to Syria, those who work in the public sector will not be strangers to counter-terrorism law. Lois JC considers where counter-terror policies come from, their racist roots, and how we confront them in our workplaces. This article was originally published in the Summer 2015 issue of the rs21 magazine and here.


    The War on Terror


    The War on Terror has disproportionately affected the Muslim community. Since 2001 it has been waged on a global scale. A recent report calculated that during the last 12 years there have been approximately 1.3 million people killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone. This war does not just involve bombing Muslim countries, but also draconian legislation and the whipping up of Islamophobia. In the UK, there have been five major pieces of legislation dedicated to terrorism since 9/11, the most recent of which is the Counter‑Terrorism and Security Act (CTSA).

    While the CTSA has many worrying features, its most concerning aspect is Part 5, which implements the Prevent strategy on a statutory basis.

    The Prevent strategy was developed in response to the London bombings in 2005. It claims to stop terrorism by identifying people on the path to radicalisation. Even though this has already been implemented in many quarters, the CTSA would require teachers, doctors, nurses and other workers to spy on their students, patients and co-workers. They would have to refer them to specialist Prevent trained officers if they suspect they are becoming ‘radicalised’.

    What is radicalisation?

    According to the government’s own assessment framework, radicalisation includes factors such as ‘feelings of grievance and injustice’, ‘being at a transitional time of life ‘and ‘a desire for political and moral change’. These factors can be seen in nearly all teenagers! Radicalisation, according to the Government, leads to extremism. Extremists are defined as those who do not adhere to ‘British values’. These values according to Theresa May include ‘respect for the rule of law, equality, free speech and respect for minorities’. But values change, and are interpreted differently according to whoever is in power. The War on Terror itself has led to violations of all the ‘values’ that Theresa May herself insists upon.

    The concepts of ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’ are often skewed by the media. For example, the ‘Trojan Horse’ story alleged that schools in Birmingham were ‘taken over’ by ‘radical interpretations’ of Islam. The Commons Education Select Committee investigated the allegations and found that these claims were groundless, essentially pushed by the former secretary of state for education Michael Gove.

    The Prevent strategy is pitched as protecting vulnerable people from the threat of extremist ideology and from groups who are seen to target new ‘recruits’. Similar concepts – ‘safeguarding’, ‘grooming’ – are taught to those combating child sexual abuse. We all want the most vulnerable in society to be protected, but the Prevent strategy does not do that. Firstly, the current situation has political causes. The roots of terrorism lie in Guantanamo Bay, and in the millions dead in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There cannot be a solution that does not address these roots; it is not the same as abuse. Secondly, the government is not trusted. It is clear Theresa May’s answer to this is not rehabilitation and support but locking people in prison after a trial with secret evidence. Muslim families who have been subject to harassment by Prevent do not feel that their best interests are considered.

    Prevent officers commonly claim that they do not just target Islamic extremism but “far right extremism” too. It is clear, however, that non‑muslims and the far right are not targeted in the same way. Ryan McGee was a soldier and member of the English Defence League who was caught with a nail-bomb and had written “I vow to drag every last immigrant into the fires of hell with me”. He was sentenced to two years, and avoided a terror charge. Solicitor Imran Khan said “It seems that if you are a Muslim, justice is not blind”.


    What is the cause of violence?


    The War on Terror is based on the idea that violence is rooted in ideology and the faith of Islam. But there is no evidence that faith causes terrorism. Even a leaked government memo said:

    “It is sometimes argued that violent extremists have progressed to terrorism by way of a passing commitment to non-violent Islamist extremism … We do not believe that it is accurate to regard radicalisation in this country as a linear ‘conveyor belt’ … This seems to both misread the radicalisation process and to give undue weight to ideological factors.”

    Successive governments refuse to acknowledge the role of imperialist wars by the West in Muslim countries, the curtailing of human rights, and the support given to brutal regimes that torture and kill their own people. Even Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former director of MI5 said that “Our involvement in Iraq radicalised, for want of a better word, a whole generation of young people.”

    What can you do?

    We need to be able to argue that these policies are not about protection but about surveillance and targeting of Muslims. Union meetings covering the War on Terror and Islamophobia can be useful to start a discussion with people at work about the wider context. Many unions have been addressing this issue at their conferences. The National Union of Teachers warned that these guidelines were shutting down debate and forcing teachers to ‘act as stormtroopers’ to spy on their students. The National Union of Students at its most recent conference adopted a motion to tackle Prevent and the CTSA. There are already plans for resistance to the CTSA once it is fully in place. It is also linked to other issues and campaigns like ‘Students not suspects’, “Cops off Campus”, and campaigns against police brutality. Never forget Jean Charles de Menezes was killed by police at Stockwell tube because he was thought to be Muslim. These links of solidarity are vital to strengthen resistance to the War on Terror.

    http://www.cageuk.org/article/fighting-prevent-agenda
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