Years of repeated warnings about PREVENT have not been heeded by government, says CAGE in letter to Priti Patel

London - CAGE has today written an open letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel demanding that she repeals PREVENT and halts the current trajectory of counter-terrorism policy, something successive Home Secretaries have failed to heed despite repeated warnings. The letter also presents to the Home Office CAGE’s widely-supported recent report, Beyond PREVENT, which outlines why the current approach is failing, and instead presents an 8-point plan to move forward constructively as a healthy and safe society.  <h3>Dr Adnan Siddiqui, CAGE Director said:</h3> “CAGE has consistently sounded the alarm over the danger PREVENT poses to civil liberties and civil society. Listing Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace and other political dissenters as ‘extremist’ and ‘terror risks’ is precisely what we warned would happen if the UK government continued to invest in the failed policy that is Prevent. If remedial steps are not taken now, the Home Office will facilitate the rise of a totalitarian security state.” “Over 100 academics and members of civil society support our report, Beyond PREVENT. It provides an excellent opportunity to break the impasse on PREVENT and outlines how we can begin the urgent discussions needed to move us towards a healthy, safe society without the securitisation of beliefs and behaviour. “Successive governments have presided over the erosion of due process protections, through the introduction of ever more extraordinary measures designed to clamp down on dissent rather than address the root causes of violence. This it has been able to do through exploiting fear and prejudice. We hope the Home Secretary will now heed civil society's concerns.” &nbsp; <h3>Our letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel:</h3> <span style="color:red">Click here to read</span> &nbsp; &nbsp; CC Image courtesy of Bond on Flikr