Home Affairs Correspondent
The United Nations has strongly criticised the UK’s counter-extremism strategy, Prevent, urging its suspension, revision, and the provision of adequate reparations to children and families who have suffered abuse directly caused by the program. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s (CERD) findings, released on August 23, echo longstanding concerns raised by human rights organisations.
In its first review of the UK in eight years, CERD criticises the previous Conservative government’s approach to “counterterrorism” and “counter-extremism” for negatively impacting British Muslims. It also places the new Labour government under renewed pressure to reform the policies.
The UN committee said it is “particularly concerned about the high number of interventions and referrals of persons belonging to Muslim communities, especially children, to the Prevent programme, including by teachers, health and other public sector personnel.” It is also concerned about the lack of effective guarantees against abuse and of lack of adequate access to important personal information such as recorded in police files.
The report strikes a blow to the conclusions of the Conservative government’s review of the policy in February 2023, which said Prevent needed to target “Islamist” terrorism more, and suggested that this threat was being downplayed for fear of causing offence. In contrast, CERD has argued that Prevent disproportionately targets Muslims.
The committee has called on the UK government to “revise” its counter-terrorism strategies: “With a view to eliminate any discriminatory and disproportionate impact on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of members of ethnic and ethnoreligious minorities, including children.” Significantly, the committee has recommended that the government “suspend” Prevent “and adopt robust measures to guarantee that while these counter-terrorism strategies remain in force, they do not result, in purpose or effect, in profiling and discrimination.”
The report further calls for people affected by “abuse of the existing measures” to be given access to “adequate reparations” — including “children and their families.”
Ilyas Nagdee, Amnesty International UK’s Racial Justice Director, welcomed the UN’s recommendations. He stated, “The UN’s call for the suspension of Prevent is a significant step in recognising the policy’s negative impact on Muslim communities, particularly children. The findings also stress the need for effective remedies for those harmed by Prevent, reflecting Amnesty’s own research on the issue.”
The Prevent strategy requires institutions such as schools, universities, and hospitals to report individuals deemed at risk of radicalisation. Critics argue that the guidelines for identifying such individuals are vague and disproportionately affect minority groups. The UN report also highlighted concerns about how personal information gathered under Prevent is used and stored, raising privacy issues.
Human rights groups have urged the UK government to take immediate action in response to the UN’s findings. Their recommendations include abolishing the two-child benefit cap, banning strip searches on children, and repealing legislation that disproportionately affects racialised communities, such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022).
As the UK government prepares to conclude its own review of the Prevent strategy next month, human rights advocates are calling for a fundamental overhaul of the policy. The UN’s report has intensified pressure on the government to address systemic racism and protect the rights of all its citizens.
Human rights groups hope that the government will use the upcoming review as an opportunity to replace Prevent with a more equitable and effective strategy—one that respects human rights and addresses the root causes of extremism without marginalising vulnerable communities.
