Project Shanaz
Project Shanaz, also known as the Shanaz Network, was a Prevent-linked network of mainly Muslim women working in counter-terrorism, launched in 2012 with a video message from the Home Secretary, Theresa May. It was set up with the involvement of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Prevent Delivery Unit and officials from the Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU).[1] The Home Office later said that it “did not set up or fund the Shanaz Network, which was an external and independent organisation”.[1] David Miller includes Shanaz among the Muslim civil society groups he argues were “astroturfed” into RICU “products”.[2]
History
According to its now-dormant website, Shanaz aimed at “bringing female voices into every level of decision-making in Prevent strategy, policy and delivery”.[1] Its members included officials and volunteers from women’s organisations, representatives of Muslim community groups, and local authority and police Prevent workers.[1] In her launch video in March 2012, May said that “Project Shanaz can empower women working in Prevent and it can help to spread good practice”.[1] The network’s website later invited visitors to “hear what the Home Secretary Theresa May has to say about the role of Shanaz”.[3]
Miller writes that the project was set up by ACPO, which was succeeded by the National Police Chiefs' Council, and that it consisted of “50 women of a number of backgrounds, race and religions, including representatives from each of the 43 police forces of England and Wales”. He also quotes Detective Inspector Khizra Dhindsa, listed in Shanaz documents as the key contact, as describing it as “our national effort to maximise the engagement, consultation, partnership working, contribution and deployment of women in preventing terrorism”.[4] Shanaz appears in a leaked list of groups with which Breakthrough Media Network, RICU’s main communications contractor, said it had “close working relationships” as a result of its work with RICU.[5]
Emails seen by Middle East Eye show that in October 2013 an officer in the ACPO Prevent Unit was supporting the Shanaz executive through a “period of transition” after its first chair, Khatija Barday-Wood, resigned. The officer said it was important to “maintain bridges and dialogue between Shanaz and the OSCT”, meaning the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism. He wrote that the OSCT was keen to pay for a national meeting of the network, but that budget pressures had put several Prevent projects on hold, including developments to the Shanaz website.[1] In October 2014 the network’s secretary, Sofia Mahmood, and another executive member met May at the Home Office.[1]
Collapse and complaints
Former members told Middle East Eye that Shanaz collapsed in 2014 amid complaints about transparency, bullying and mismanagement. Many members had lost patience after the October 2014 meeting with May, which they said had not been disclosed to the wider network. Barday-Wood said she had quit as chair after six months because of what she described as bullying by Mahmood and another officer, and that she had complained to officials in RICU and the ACPO Prevent Delivery Unit. She also said that the Home Office never delivered the seed funding she had requested and called the project “a tick-box exercise for the government”. Former treasurer Nilofer Mohammed described “a lack of transparency and a bullying culture”. Rani Bilkhu of Jeena International said she had been expelled for questioning how the network was run.[1]
Sajda Mughal of the JAN Trust wrote to the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, and the Security Minister, Ben Wallace, in 2018, saying that Mahmood’s continued involvement in Prevent work raised “serious safeguarding concerns”. She also disputed the Home Office’s description of Shanaz as independent, saying that “a member of the Prevent/RICU team was involved in the Shanaz Network”. Nazir Afzal, a patron of the JAN Trust, said that “the Home Office were key to the set up of this organisation”. Mahmood told Middle East Eye that the allegations were “unfounded”. Bradford Council said that no concerns had been raised about her, and a former employer praised her work.[1]
After Shanaz
Mahmood went on to run the consultancy Empowering Minds. Middle East Eye reported in 2019 that it had received £29,920 in Home Office-allocated Prevent funding over the previous two years for the “Mothers Against Radicalisation” project in Bradford, and that Mahmood had met the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, in August 2017.[1] Miller states that Empowering Minds was set up in 2015. Citing a 2018/19 Bradford Prevent project document, he says it received £25,000 in Prevent funding that year, with a further £25,000 for mosques and madrassas.[6]
Contact
- Internet Archive holdings of shanaznetwork.co.uk
- Internet Archive holdings of shanaznetwork.weebly.com
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Simon Hooper, REVEALED: Prevent women’s network collapsed over complaints of ‘bullying and intimidation’, Middle East Eye, 8 February 2019.
- ↑ David Miller, How Muslim Civil Society Groups Are Astroturfed into ‘Products’ by British Intelligence, UK Column, 26 September 2025.
- ↑ Shanaz Network, shanaznetwork.weebly.com home page, Internet Archive capture of 6 April 2020.
- ↑ Shanaz Network documents (not independently retrieved). Cited indirectly, as quoted in David Miller, How Muslim Civil Society Groups Are Astroturfed into ‘Products’ by British Intelligence, UK Column, 26 September 2025.
- ↑ Breakthrough Media Network, showcase presentation and list of civil society groups with which it said it had “close working relationships” (leaked, c. 2015). Cited indirectly: not independently retrieved; page images reproduced in David Miller, How Muslim Civil Society Groups Are Astroturfed into ‘Products’ by British Intelligence, UK Column, 26 September 2025.
- ↑ Bradford Metropolitan District Council, Prevent project document, 2018/19 (not independently retrieved). Cited indirectly, as described in David Miller, How Muslim Civil Society Groups Are Astroturfed into ‘Products’ by British Intelligence, UK Column, 26 September 2025.