THE United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has said that there needs to be a suspension of the UK government’s controversial Prevent strategy.
Amnesty has long campaigned for Prevent to be abolished due to the considerable evidence that it has caused immense harm to minoritised and racialised communities, limiting and eroding their fundamental rights with little to no recourse to accountability and remedy.
Ilyas Nagdee, Amnesty International UK’s Racial Justice Director, said: “In concluding their review of the UK, the recommendations from the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination provide a damning assessment of the state of racism in the UK. We’re pleased that many of the recommendations on identified key areas mirror those we raised with the committee in Geneva last week.
“It is a significant move for a UN body to call for the suspension of Prevent and highlight the policy’s negative impacts on Muslim communities – in particular children – and their ability to fully exercise their fundamental human rights, alongside the risks around how their personal information is stored and used.
“It is essential that there are prompt and effective remedies for people affected by Prevent which mirror the recommendations from our research into the human rights violations caused by the legislation.”
“Additionally, recommendations to prohibit strip-searches on children and repeal legislation that restricts the right to protest are all important findings, and echo calls made by many organisations during this process.
Prevent duty
As part of the Prevent strategy, schools, universities, hospitals, local authorities and other institutions are under a duty to refer individuals who are at risk of being “drawn into terrorism”. Their employees – including teachers, academics, doctors and counsellors – must watch out for the “signs” of potential radicalisation, which are based on the Extremism Risk Guidelines (ERG22+). These guidelines include factors such as “a need to redress injustice”, “the need for excitement, comradeship or adventure” and “over identification with a group, cause or ideology”. Prevent referrals are then assessed by local counter-terrorism police.
Findings and recommendations given by Amnesty and the Runnymede Trust to the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination included:
- Forty-seven per cent of children of colour are living in poverty, compared to 24 per cent of white children.
- Police are 6.5 more likely to strip-search Black children, and 4.7 times more likely to strip-search Black adults, than their White counterparts.
- British Bangladeshi women are more than eight times more likely to be unemployed than White British women.
- Under ‘Joint Enterprise’ laws, Black people are 16 times more likely to be prosecuted, and Asian people four times more likely to be prosecuted.
- Religious hate crimes against Muslims or those perceived as Muslims constitute the largest proportion of hate crimes, at 44 per cent. This is followed by 19 per cent for Jewish people or those perceived as Jewish.
- Following October 2023, Islamophobic incidents rose by 600 per cent, while 4,103 anti-Jewish hate incidents were recorded in 2023, two-thirds of which were after 7 October.
- The presence of police officers in schools has increased, with 979 Safer Schools Officers operating in schools across Britain, 489 in London. These officers are deployed in schools with higher proportions of pupils of colour and working-class pupils.
The joint submissions recommendations included:
- Abolish the two-child limit benefit limit.
- Scrap the Prevent Duty.
- Prohibit in law and in practice the use of strip-searches on children.
- Scrap the Serious Violence Reduction Order pilot.
- Repeal harmful legislation for racialised communities, including the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022), Public Order Act (2023), Elections Act (2022) and Section 10 of the Nationality and Borders Act (2022).
- Ban the use of rap and other music in prosecutions.
The UK government will conclude its review of its counter-extremism strategy in October, with an opportunity to chart a new path forward.
* The United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s concluding observations are available to download here.
* Read the full report from Amnesty and the Runnymede Trust here
* Source: Amnesty International