IHRC has opposed PREVENT since its inception as part of its wider campaign against anti-terrorism laws and policies in the UK and many other countries. PREVENT is a controversial part of the official UK counter-terrorism strategy which the government claims is concerned with preventing radicalisation and tackling extremism.

Although PREVENT is presented as a colour-blind programme, its origins and implementation show that it is invariably targeted at the Muslim community, being used as a pretext for mass surveillance and social conditioning.

For these reasons IHRC is opposed in principle to the whole PREVENT programme. We see it as resting on racist and Islamophobic assumptions. We believe that by demonising Islam as innately violent the programme has contributed to the legitimisation of institutional discrimination against Muslims.

Our campaign on PREVENT has included reports, public events, calls to scrap the policy and resource packs for communities to resist its implementation. Please share these.

IHRC believes that the UK PREVENT policy and the raft of counter-terror laws and policies brought in since 1997 need to be scrapped, and existing laws regarding violence and incitement be applied where appropriate.