Our recent webinar explored the Prevent duty in securitised schools, the recent aspects that further strengthen Prevent and what Prevent Watch can do to challenge referrals.  By Mariam A Schools in the UK have increasingly become sites of securitisation, rather than safe places for learning and free expression. One of several changes that has facilitated this in the last decade is the introduction of Prevent – part of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST – as a statutory duty for educators. This presence of the Prevent duty in education has contributed to the increased security and surveillance in classrooms, which has been flagged as a concern by several human rights groups as well as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education. These concerns are shared by Prevent Watch. In our recent webinar, we explored how Prevent has contributed to […]

Several months ago, I was contacted by a mother whose daughter had been excluded from school and referred to Prevent for saying “Free Palestine”.  This is just one of many cases we see at Prevent Watch, some of which include young children being referred to counter-terrorism for questioning under Prevent, simply for expressing support for Palestine and Palestinians. In this case, an academically bright and principled teenager who stood for what she believed in was being penalised by a school that should have been nurturing her growth, not silencing her voice. This mother was upset and shocked by the lies that the school had told to cover their backs. She reached out to Prevent Watch for support and as I spoke to her on the phone she repeated the words:  “HasbunAllahu wa ni’ma al-wakeel” – translated as “Allah is enough for us, and He is the best disposer of our affairs.” These words […]