Prevent Watch

People's Review of Prevent

The People's Review of Prevent

The People’s Review of Prevent is an alternative review to the Government Shawcross Review.

This review provides a voice to the people most impacted by the Prevent Duty.
Prevent is described as ‘safeguarding’ children from harms. However, under Prevent, safeguarding is focused on protecting the wider public from children believed to be ‘risky’, rather than protecting children from harms.

Throughout our report we present case studies that show how real these harms can be and the distress they cause to children and their families and carers.

The British Values Discussion

Date: November 2015 Gender: Female Location: Greater London SA was in her form class in which a discussion was initiated concerning the notion of “British Values”. Her form tutor posed a number of questions to the class on issues such as democracy, governance, the law in the United Kingdom and Parliament. He wanted the class to evaluate whether such political structures were positive or negative. He then asked SA and her fellow students to fill out the associated questionnaire. SA wanted to know why they were being asked such questions, as this was form time and not in the context of a politics class. Her form tutor replied that they are discussing a number of different types of laws such as Hindu and Christian law. He then refereed to Shariah law in a derogatory manner, calling it “brutal.” He referred to Islam’s penal code and marriage laws. PREVENT Watch has

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The Social Sciences Student

Date: April 2015 Gender: Female Location: Greater London HH was a social sciences student based in London. HH was studying in the library, writing an essay on radicalisation. A lecturer at the university saw HH with two books on the topic of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which HH had been reading in the course of writing her essay. The two books in question are two of the foremost pieces of work in the area of study and it would be necessary for any student to use the book when writing an essay on radicalisation in which ISIS was discussed. The lecturer’s reaction at HH carrying the books was to remark “Oh! Don’t go joining ISIS will you?” HH’s reaction was one of shock, and this was abundantly evident to the lecturer. The lecturer said that she was “joking”. Later on in the day, a friend of HH’s

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