Operation Nicole

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

Operation Nicole is an initiative (part of the Preventing Violent Extremism agenda) that was developed by the Lancashire Constabulary and recommended for wider use by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). The project is a tabletop exercise which aims to ensure the police can explain to community members how and why they have to take certain actions and decisions when confronting terrorism and terrorists. In order to best explain themselves, community members are encouraged to play police officers' roles and take part in counter-terrorism simululation exercises.

The official aim of the project is to:

"give participants a better understanding of the factors that support the decision-making process from the time that information is received through to the point of planned police action. The strength of these exercises is the opportunity for communities to explore the reasoning behind the need to arrest people for terrorist offences. These exercises very clearly demonstrate the hard choices that have to be made and the care that is taken in making them.

The Lokahi Foundation, which has been involved in facilitating Operation Nicole, understands the project to be:

"a joint community/police training event generating intensive dialogue between a national police body and members of the Muslim communities. The aim is for each to understand what it feels like to be in the others’ shoes and have to take key decisions, especially when it all starts to fall apart."

Criticisms

Staffordshire University Student's Union criticised Operation Nicole for being an activity "that amount[ed] to surveillance or spying on minority student including Muslim students." They also claimed that Operation Nicole was "a continuation of the witch hunt against Muslims and student activists [which]...is designed to stigmatize certain sections of the community to justify the ‘War on Terror’..."

See Also

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