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Religion and Terrorism: The Prevent Duty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2021

Rebecca Riedel
Rebecca Riedel*
Affiliation:
Doctoral Student and Convenor, Interfaith Legal Advisers’ Network School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University
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Abstract

The Terrorism Act 2000 recognises that religion may be a force for bad in its definition of ‘terrorism’: ‘The use or threat of action … designed to influence a government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public … for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.’ ‘Radicalisation’ is the process by which an individual becomes involved in terrorism, and it is the statutory Prevent Duty, introduced under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, that is the UK's current means of tackling radicalisation. Under the duty, specified authorities (such as schools, police, etc) must have due regard to preventing people from being ‘drawn into terrorism’. This article addresses an often-neglected area in the ongoing legal debate surrounding the statutory Prevent Duty: the religious dimension. It suggests that religion is at the centre of the Prevent Duty and that the formulation of the duty was stimulated by religion – namely, Islamist extremism and radicalisation. It will discuss the ways in which the Prevent Duty can be criticised; that it has an impact on human rights that it is potentially discriminatory towards Muslims; and that it does not clearly distinguish between permissible radical religion and impermissible harmful religion. The article concludes by suggesting that religion plays an important part in the understanding of extremism and radicalisation.

Keywords

Prevent Dutyradicalisationfreedom of religion
Type
Articles
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 280 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Ecclesiastical Law Society

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Mark Hill QC, Roxanna Fatemi-Dehaghani and Norman Doe for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

References

2 E Pickles, ‘Recognising the role of faith in Britain’, 26 February 2015, available at <https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/recognising-the-role-of-faith-in-britain>, accessed 20 February 2021.

3 Gallagher (Valuation Officer) v Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints [2008] UKHL 56 at para 51.

4 Terrorism Act 2000, s 1(1), emphasis added. While this article is on religion, the Prevent Duty covers other types of extremism: see note 27 below.

5 Yet, the Prevent Duty is not treated in most standard law and religion texts. On the connection between religion, law and terrorism more widely, see, eg, Idriss, M, ‘Religion and the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001’, (2002) Crim LR 890–891Google Scholar; Ahdar, R (ed), Research Handbook on Law and Religion (Cheltenham, 2018), pp 351–354CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bottoni, R and Ferrari, S (eds), Routledge Handbook of Religious Laws (Abingdon, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pp 184, 190, 330, 332. See also Kiviorg, M (ed), Securitisation of Religious Freedom: religion and limits of state control (Granada, 2020)Google Scholar.

6 HM Government, ‘Prevent Strategy’, June 2011, p 1. For this and the other Prevent Strategy and Prevent Duty documents cited in this article, see <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-duty-guidance>, accessed 20 January 2021.

7 HM Government, ‘CONTEST: The United Kingdom's Strategy for Countering Terrorism’, July 2011, p 6; HM Government, ‘Prevent Strategy’, pp 7–8.

8 HM Government, ‘Prevent Strategy’, p 108.

9 Ibid: ‘The single narrative is also sometimes known as the Al Qa'ida Narrative, the Grand Narrative or the Global Extremist Narrative.’ Other definitions given in the strategy document include ‘Islamism’.

10 Ibid, pp 5, 8, 80, 107 and 108. See p 35 for ‘core values’: ‘democracy, rule of law, equality of opportunity, freedom of speech and the rights of all men and women to live free from persecution of any kind’.

11 Ibid, p 7.

12 HM Government, ‘Report to the Home Secretary of independent oversight of Prevent review and strategy’ (2011), para 8.

13 Ibid, para 54: ‘Islamic faith groups range far more widely than mosques: there is evidence that many young people who are radicalised regard the mosques attended by their parents as not relevant to their radical ideas, which they may share and develop in groups outside the mosque.’

14 HC Deb 7 January 2015, vol 590.

15 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, s 26.

16 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, s 27(2)(f).

17 For faith schools in England, see M Hill, R Sandberg, N Doe and C Grout, Religion and Law in the United Kingdom (third edition, Alphen aan den Rijn, 2021) paras 468–490.

18 HL Deb 28 January 2015, vol 759, cols 258 and 291.

19 Cited in N Doe, Comparative Religious Law: Judaism, Christianity, Islam (Cambridge, 2018), p 308.

20 Cited in ibid, p 217.

21 J Espinoza, ‘Ofsted warning over thousands of children in danger of radicalisation’, The Telegraph, 16 May 2016.

22 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, s 29.

23 HM Government, ‘Revised Prevent Duty guidance for England and Wales’ (updated 10 April 2019), paras 1–4: counter-terrorism is the responsibility of the UK Government, but ‘many of the local delivery mechanisms in Wales and Scotland, such as health, education and local government, are devolved’; ‘close cooperation’ is required. There is separate guidance for Scotland.

24 Ibid, paras 14–146.

25 London Borough of Tower Hamlets v B [2016] EWHC 1707 (Fam).

26 Ibid, paras 9 and 24.

27 Ibid, para 150, presenting the report A Silke and K Brown, ‘Issues relating to radicalisation’, 6 November 2015.

28 HM Government, ‘Revised Prevent Duty guidance for England and Wales’, para 7.

29 Ibid, para 9: ‘But terrorists associated with the extreme right also pose a continued threat.’

30 Ibid, para 10; see also para 11 on ‘white supremacist ideology’ and ‘right-wing’ terrorism, which is not categorised as religious terror.

31 HM Government, ‘CONTEST’, p 8, n 4.

32 Counter-Terrorism and Extremism Act 2015, ss 36–37: panel membership and proceedings; s 38: co-operation with partners. See also HM Government, ‘Channel Duty Guidance: protecting people vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism’ (2020), p 10.

33 Home Office, ‘Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent programme, England and Wales, April 2018 to March 2019’, p 14.

34 J Grierson and D Sabbagh, ‘Largest number of Prevent referrals relating to far-right extremism’, The Guardian, 26 November 2020.

35 Commission for Countering Extremism, ‘COVID-19: how hateful extremists are exploiting the pandemic’, July 2020.

36 That is, their governing body or proprietor. Counter-Terrorism and Extremism Act 2015, s 26(1).

37 Home Office, ‘Prevent Duty guidance: for higher education institutions in England and Wales’ (updated 10 April 2019), paras 25 and 26.

38 University of South Wales, ‘Prevent Protocol’, June 2019. See also HEFCW, ‘Prevent Duty: framework for monitoring higher education in Wales – 2019/20 onwards’, 1 August 2019, para 1, <https://www.southwales.ac.uk/degree-apprenticeships/policies-and-procedures/>, accessed 2 June 2021.

39 HM Government, ‘CONTEST’, p 40.

40 HM Government, ‘Prevent Strategy’, p 107.

41 B Bostock, ‘24 people have been killed by terrorists who went through government “deradicalization” programs, showing why these efforts are crucially flawed’, Business Insider, 7 December 2019.

42 Counter-Terrorism and Extremism Act 2015, s 32.

43 Home Office, ‘Prevent Duty guidance: for higher education institutions in England and Wales’, paras 8, 10.

44 Ibid, para 11.

45 Butt v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 256 at para 177.

46 Cardiff University, ‘Prevent Policy’, n.d., p 2, <https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1079635/CARDIFF-UNIVERSITY-PREVENT-POLICY.pdf>, accessed 2 June 2021.

47 Secretary of State for the Home Office, ‘Counter-terrorism: written question – 51248’, 31 October 2016.

48 A Singh, ‘Instead of fighting terror, Prevent is creating a climate of fear’, The Guardian, 19 October 2016. Singh's article does not give a religious example; however, there will certainly be analogous issues in the sphere of religion: for example, surrounding the seal of confession in Roman Catholicism and Anglicism. See R Bursell, ‘The seal of the confessional’, (1990) 2 Ecc LJ 84–109; see also C Grout, ‘The seal of the confessional and the criminal law of England and Wales’, (2020) 22 Ecc LJ 138–155. However, these deal with safeguarding and not the Prevent Duty.

49 Open Society Justice Initiative, ‘Eroding trust: the UK's Prevent counter-extremism strategy in health and education’, October 2016, <https://www.justiceinitiative.org/publications/eroding-trust-uk-s-prevent-counter-extremism-strategy-health-and-education>, accessed 2 June 2021.

50 London Borough of Tower Hamlets v B, para 6.

51 Ibid, para 126. The case cited is Re A v London Borough Enfield [2016] EWHC 567 (Admin). Research presented by expert witnesses included M King and D Taylor, ‘The radicalization of homegrown jihadists: a review of theoretical models and social psychological evidence’, (2011) 23 Terrorism and Political Violence 602–622.

52 F Qurashi, ‘The Prevent strategy and the UK “war on terror”: embedding infrastructures of surveillance in Muslim communities’, (2018) 4 Palgrave Communications, <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-017-0061-9>, accessed 4 January 2021.

53 D Barrett, ‘Tackling radicalisation: the limitations of the anti-radicalisation prevent duty’, (2018) 12 European Human Rights Law Review 530–541 at 536; L Blackwood, N Hopkins and S Reicher, ‘From theorizing radicalization to surveillance practices: Muslims in the cross hairs of scrutiny’, (2015) 37 Political Psychology 597–612. Muslim Council of Britain, ‘Meeting between David Anderson QC and the MCB: concerns on Prevent’, 2015, <https://www.mcb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/20150803-Case-studies-about-Prevent.pdf>; Muslim Council of Britain, ‘The impact of Prevent on Muslim communities’, 2016, <http://archive.mcb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/MCB-CT-Briefing2.pdf>, both accessed 2 June 2021.

54 Guest, M et al. , Islam and Muslims on UK University Campuses: perceptions and challenges (Durham, 2020), p 6Google Scholar, emphasis in original.

55 European Court of Human Rights, ‘Guide on Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights: freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ (updated 31 August 2020) pp 3, 42, 43–44, 54, 83, emphasis added.

56 Hale, Lady, ‘Freedom of religion and freedom from religion’, (2017) 19 Ecc LJ 3–13Google Scholar at 9.

57 Papageorgiou and Others v Greece App nos 4762/18 and 6140/18 (ECtHR, 31 October 2019).

58 Home Office News Team, ‘Fact sheet: Desistance and Disengagement Programme’, 5 November 2019, <https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/11/05/fact-sheet-desistance-and-disengagement-programme/>, accessed 2 June 2021.

59 C Brader, ‘Extremism in prisons: are UK deradicalization programmes working?’, 11 June 2020, House of Lords Library, <https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/extremism-in-prisons-are-uk-deradicalisation-programmes-working/> accessed 2 June 2021.

60 Home Office, ‘Counter-Extremism strategy’, October 2015.

61 HM Government, ‘Prevent Strategy’, p 108: ‘Resilience in the context of this document means the capability of people, groups and communities to rebut and reject proponents of terrorism and the ideology they promote.’

62 Cranmer, F, ‘Parliamentary report’, (2016) 18 Ecc LJ 222–229Google Scholar at 223–224.