Preventing Violent Extremism

This article is part of the Counter-Terrorism Portal project of Spinwatch.

The Preventing Violent Extremism Programme is the official name of Prevent strand of the British government's counter-terrorism strategy - Contest 2. It is sometimes abbreviated as PVE.

It is managed and funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Foreign Office, the Police services and the Home Office and its affiliates, such as the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism and Research, Information and Communications Unit

Objectives

The fundamental objectives of PVE are to engage and work with Muslim communities to:

• Undermine extremist voices and ideologies so that mainstream voices can speak for the majority of Muslims, who are peaceful and law-abiding citizens

• Disrupt those who promote violence as a methodology for change by strengthening moderate voices and their ability to counter the simplistic arguments and solutions to perceived and real grievances.

• Work with law-enforcement agencies, communities and community leaders to help bring back individuals who may be showing signs of radicalisation and/or extremism through programmes such as the Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund

• Strengthen the Muslim community as a whole to counter the ideas and beliefs of extremists

• Address the grievances that extremists may use to justify their arguments and actions, such as the Iraq war.

Criticisms

In October 2009, the Guardian reported that Preventing Violent Extremism was being used "to gather intelligence" on "political and religious views, information on mental health, sexual activity and associates, and other sensitive information" on people that are "not suspected of involvement in terrorism". The Director of the Human Rights organisation Liberty, Shami Chakrabati, "branded [PVE] as the biggest spying programme in Britain in modern times and an affront to civil liberties".

However, despite the criticisms of PVE, Ed Husain of the Quilliam Foundation publically supported the spying of innocent people and believed that "it is morally right to give law enforcement agencies the best chance of stopping terrorists before they strike".

According to Arun Kundnani of the Institute of Race Relations, "the Prevent programme,in effect,constructs the Muslim population as a ‘suspect community’,fosters social divisions among Muslims themselves and between Muslims and others,encourages tokenism,facilitates violations of privacy and professional norms of confidentiality,discourages local democracy and is counter-productive in reducing the risk of political violence.