Tackling Extremism in the UK: An ideological attack on Muslim communities
Part I of the Tackling Extremism in the UK report
see Tackling Extremism in the UK: A mandate for secret criminalisation for part II
In the wake of the killing of Lee Rigby, a soldier in the British army who served in Afghanistan, the UK government established a task force in order to set out proposals for the way they would tackle ‘extremism’ within Muslim communities. As a late addition to this process, the government included references to far-right extremism in light of the murder of Birmingham resident, Mohammed Saleem, and due to a series of attacks against mosques in the West Midlands.
Under the original CONTEST strategy, the UK government sought to set in motion a programme to prevent violent extremism (PVE) under its PREVENT strategy. However, since the tenure of former Prime Minister Tony Blair until this government, the move in policy has been very much geared towards preventing any forms of extremism – this forcing the strategy to take a far more ideological approach to Muslim belief and practice.
The original PREVENT strategy proved to be counterproductive in terms of its strategy and its implementation. The failure of the programme resulted in the current government rethinking its policy and in 2011, the coalition government released PREVENT II, an attempt to rethink the former strategy in light of its previous failings. Unfortunately, PREVENT II only served to continue the ideological mistakes of its predecessor, rather than addressing the specific grievances of communities.
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Part I of the Tackling Extremism in the UK report
see Tackling Extremism in the UK: A mandate for secret criminalisation for part II
In the wake of the killing of Lee Rigby, a soldier in the British army who served in Afghanistan, the UK government established a task force in order to set out proposals for the way they would tackle ‘extremism’ within Muslim communities. As a late addition to this process, the government included references to far-right extremism in light of the murder of Birmingham resident, Mohammed Saleem, and due to a series of attacks against mosques in the West Midlands.
The ideologically driven report by the Government’s Task Force must be questioned in terms of this disingenuous attempt to present what it considers to be issues relating
to ‘extremism’ in the UK. The report provides no evidence base for its assumptions, rather it has based its findings on closed door discussions with undisclosed individuals
or groups, only lending credibility to the view that only those invited to partake in the review, were those who would acquiesce a predetermined ideological view taken by
this government.
The following report is an effort by CAGE to highlight the problems with the analysis and suggestions presented by the Task Force. Communities should understand the
difficulties that such a document poses to the legitimate practice of the Islamic faith in the UK, but further should understand the impact that such a strategy can have on
wider civil liberties and freedom of expression and religion in the UK.
