Home Office threatened with libel action over Prevent strategy review

An organisation that monitors Prevent, the UK government’s controversial programme to stop people getting drawn into terrorism, has warned of a defamation action against the Home Office before a review into the strategy.

Prevent Watch, which has supported 600 individuals it says have wrongly been affected by Prevent, sent a formal letter to the department threatening legal action.

The government’s Prevent programme has attracted criticism because some of those targeted have later been found to have no links to terrorism or radicalisation while others who have gone on to commit such acts have not been identified and diverted by the programme.

Critics fear the programme stifles open debate, especially among young people, about issues such as radical ideologies. Some innocent remarks have been interpreted wrongly as indicators of an intention to commit acts of terror.

In January 2021, the government appointed William Shawcross to conduct an independent review into Prevent. The much-delayed review, initially due to be published at the end of 2021, is yet to see the light of day.

Some media have reported the delay is due to fears that the government could get sued for potentially libellous references to organisations critical of the Prevent programme.

Prevent Watch has launched the legal action because of fears that the organisation is listed in Shawcross’s unpublished review, which has been shared with some media outlets, in a libellous way as being supportive of Islamic extremism because it opposes the Prevent programme.

Shawcross is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange, which criticised Prevent Watch in a report published last April entitled Delegitimising Counter-Terrorism. In this report, a foreword suggested that those raising concerns about Prevent are “enabling terrorism”.

Leaked extracts of Shawcross’s Prevent review reported by the Guardian highlight his view that Prevent is too focused on rightwing extremism and instead should focus more on Islamic extremism.

Dr Layla Aitlhadj, the director of Prevent Watch, says she believes it is likely their organisation has been named in Shawcross’s review as one of those critical of the Prevent programme who are responsible for spreading Islamic extremism, a claim which, if it is made in Shawcross’s review, she says is seriously defamatory.

The legal letter calls on the Home Office to remove any defamatory references to Prevent Watch that may be contained in Shawcross’s review. The letter warns that copies of the report leaked to the media may have contained critical references to Prevent Watch and so may have already libelled them.

It adds that in order to avoid full defamation proceedings any references to Prevent Watch included in Shawcross’s report must be removed.

“We understand it is likely that we have been named as part of this ‘list”’,” the legal letter states.

Aitlhadj said: “Our important civil society work, based on hundreds of cases of people adversely and unfairly targeted by Prevent, will not be silenced in this way. Our pre-action letter to the Home Office makes it clear they have a responsibility to act. They should not only remove any defamatory statements in the Shawcross report, but they must ensure the contents are within the stated purpose of the independent review, and publish their report without further delay, to avoid liability and allow for public scrutiny.”

Prevent Watch was one of more than 500 organisations and individuals that boycotted Shawcross’s review due to controversial comments he has made about Islam in the past.

A government spokesperson said: “The government is currently reviewing the recommendations of the independent review and will publish the report and our response in due course. It is only right that the government takes the time to prepare and deliver a considered response.”