Date: July 2018 Sector: Education Region: East Midlands Gender: Male QS is 6 years old. During the last week of school, QS’s mother received a ‘courtesy call’ from her son’s school informing her that he had been referred to Prevent. The mother was told that during a school trip, QS had made comments to another 6-year-old child about non-Muslims and that he had allegedly learned these comments from his father. The other child then had told his parents who in turn informed the teacher. The staff member asked QS’s mother if she knew what Prevent was but did not proceed to explain the process any further. QS's mother was too distressed at that point to ask any further questions. QS mother later learned that both the teacher and the family support worker had already questioned QS at school about the comments. QS’s mother was shocked that no one from the school had informed her about this at any stage, particularly considering QS’s age, and that no attempts had been made to investigate or resolve the matter before referring a 6 year old child to Prevent. A few days later a Prevent Officer appeared at the family home without any prior notice. QS’s mother was entirely taken back by the sudden visit and asked the Officer to make an appointment first. The Officer then contacted her in writing confirming that a referral regarding her 6-year old son had been made to Prevent and he therefore wanted to come and speak with the parents and the "referred party". QS’s mother sought further information from the Prevent Officer, particularly with his request to speak with her young son. The Officer only responded shortly before the visit was to take place, QS’s mother was unsatisfied with the Prevent Officer’s vague responses but decided to go ahead with the meeting as she wanted the matter resolved as soon as possible. She remained cautious that her son would not be distressed in any way by the meeting. When QS’s mother informed the Officer that she would have a friend with her for the meeting, the Prevent Officer wanted to have the friends details as well. QS’s mother was determined that the Prevent Officer should clarify the outstanding issues, including why her 6-year-old son had been referred in the first place. During the meeting, the Prevent Officer appeared sympathetic to the mother’s concerns about the referral, referring to his own Irish Catholic background. The Officer said he would not had been concerned had his own child made such comments and agreed that perhaps it was possible that the child had been singled out because he was Muslim. QS’s mother asked the Officer about the information regarding the referral passed on about her son by the school to Prevent. The Officer told the mother that he hadn’t received or read any information regarding her son, including any referral form. This shocked the mother who questioned how it was possible that a Prevent Officer had come to their home to question her son merely based on what one 6 year old had said to another 6 year old who told his parents about it. The Prevent Officer spoke to QS briefly but by the time the visit was coming to an end, QS’s mother noticed that the Officer had not yet addressed the comments in question. She questioned the Officer why this was the case as this was meant to have been the purpose of the visit and the referral itself. If there were concerns, as she had been told there were, QS’s mother wanted them addressed. The Prevent officer seemed taken back by this and then asked for QS to be called back in. The Officer then asked QS where he had learned the said comments and it then transpired that he had learned them from ‘Horrible Histories’, a popular TV show for children. QS did not recall saying anything about his father at any stage. Later that day, the Prevent Officer informed the mother that no concerns had been identified and that her son would have no further involvement from Prevent. The officer also said that he had raised the mothers concerns about the referral with the school. The entire incident was very distressing for the family. The family felt they had to battle between their concerns for the welfare of their child and his rights with not appearing uncooperative with Prevent. They were very concerned how this would impact their 6-year-old son who had been questioned twice at school without his parents present and by a Prevent officer about something he had learned from a TV show. QS's mother felt concern for other parents in similar situations who may not have sought assistance. The family contacted the Prevent Watch Helpline and supported the family throughout this process. This case demonstrates how Prevent has created an environment within which Muslim children are viewed through a securitized lens. While the case was closed by Prevent, the distress and trauma caused to the family could have been easily avoided had the school treated QS age appropriately and consulted the family before referring the child to Prevent, as also evidenced by the Prevent Officers comments. In this case, the school was ultimately acting based on the Prevent Duty which allows for complete disregard of children’s welfare and results in situations in which matters are escalated to what can be attributed to silly comments made by a young child.

Date: April 2018 Sector: Health / NHS / Optician Region: Greater London Gender: Male TI is 9 years old. He had an appointment to see an optician and was accompanied by his father. Almost immediately upon commencing the eye examination, the Optician asked TI if he had Chloe, Rebecca, Emily, Barbara and other English girls in his class. TI felt confused by the question and said he did not have these girls in his class. The Optician then repeated the question six or seven times. He repeated the names of the girls emphatically and asked TI whether he had "these English girls" in his class. TI was still feeling confused and started to feel uncomfortable. TI asked the Optician "why do you keep asking these questions?" The Optician proceeded to state that "you go to one of them schools" and that "you don’t go to school with English kids do you?" The Optician then appeared to smirk. TI felt highly apprehensive and asked what the problem was. The Optician asked TI "do you know who the Prime Minister is?" TI answered "Theresa May". The Optician then asked "how many paragraphs of English can you write?" to which TI responded that "four or five". The Optician stated that ‘Emily, Rebecca and other English children can write four pages, why cant you?’ The Optician proceeded to repeat this statement six or seven times, asking TI over and over "why can’t you?" TI was becoming extremely upset at this stage. TI’s father was standing in the room throughout this time and asked the Optician about interrogating his son. TI’s father questioned why the Optician was asking his child such irrelevant and inappropriate questions, as they had no relevance to testing his son’s eyes. The Optician appeared taken back by this and admitted that he had recently attended Prevent training. TI’s father then told the Optician that Prevent seemed to be a highly discriminatory policy and that it was upsetting his son. TI’s father proceeded to inform the Optician that his behaviour was highly discriminatory against a 9-year-old child. TI’s father told the Optician not to question his child like this. The Optician accepted that he was interrogating TI under Prevent. TI was left traumatised by the events and was tearful on his way back home from the appointment. He asked his father if he had done something wrong, why he did not have any English kids in his class and if he was not good enough. TI has always been proud of his British heritage but was made to feel like he did not belong here and had been ‘otherised’ following what should have been a simple Optical check. TI’s parents were shocked and appalled by the Optician’s behaviour. Prevent Watch documented the case and assisted the family with submitting a complaint to the Optical Consumer Complaints Service (OCCS). The family is now waiting for a response from the OCCS who are taking the matter seriously. In this case, a 9-year-old child was interrogated and traumatised without reason and based on Prevent (WRAP) training. The case demonstrates the direct consequences of the flawed and inadequate Prevent policy, which has suspicion of Muslims at the forefront, a reflection of the Prevent policy itself.

Cases Archives - Prevent Watch

Q: Muslim school kids "taught to spy on each other" – 5Pillars

5Pillars has been told that two schools in the UK have been trying to train Muslim pupils to effectively spy on each other. Prevent Watch, which monitors the government’s controversial counter-extremism programme, told 5Pillars that the schools, one in Birmingham and one in Slough, have been training, or attempting to train, their pupils in the Prevent strategy. All schools are required to deliver the Prevent duty and “have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.” However, it has been assumed until now that teachers are responsible for delivering Prevent and this is the first time that we have heard of pupils themselves being trained to deliver the strategy. 5Pillars spoke to a 17 year old pupil at Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College in Birmingham, which has an overwhelming majority Muslim intake. The student told us that around a month ago his whole year group had been trained to look out for the “signs of radicalisation and extremism” among his peers. Source: Muslim school kids "taught to spy on each other" – 5Pillars

Q: Netpol: 14-year-old boy labelled a Domestic Extremist

JACK’S STORY: today we want to tell you all how a 14-year-old Derbyshire boy was labelled a #DomesticExtremist because he said in class – in a lesson on the US civil rights movement – that he is an anti-fascist and how his family was then hounded by counter-terrorism police [embed]https://twitter.com/policemonitor/status/1145946062944985088[/embed]