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Reports, analysis and op-eds covering the Prevent duty, global counter-extremism and other important news related to Prevent that could impact your context – just in case you missed it.

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PRESS RELEASE: UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination grades UK response on Prevent ‘unsatisfactory’

London – The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has formally assessed the UK Government’s response to its 2024 recommendations on the Prevent duty as “unsatisfactory”, in a letter [1] to the UK Government dated 26 August 2026 and published today by Prevent Watch. In August 2024 [2], the Committee recommended that the UK suspend the Prevent duty, adopt safeguards against profiling and discrimination, and establish independent monitoring and remedies for those affected. Reviewing the Government’s one-year progress report, the Committee regrets “the lack of detailed information on the concrete measures adopted by the State Party to revise the CONTEST and Prevent counter-terrorism strategies, including the Prevent duty, with a view to eliminating any discriminatory and disproportionate impact”. On the two bodies the Government presents as safeguards, the Home Office’s Standards and Compliance Unit and the Independent Prevent Commissioner, the Committee finds that “their mandate is primarily […]

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picture of the united nations headquarters in geneva for a story on reparations for uk prevent duty CategoriesLatest Expert Views Community Expert View Education Expert View Our Expert Views

UN racial discrimination committee grades UK progress on Prevent ‘unsatisfactory’

Two years ago, on 23 August 2024, the UN’s racial discrimination committee urged the UK to suspend the Prevent duty. Civil society organisations and independent experts had been saying for a decade that Prevent was discriminatory and not fit for purpose. But this time the verdict came from the body the UK agreed to answer to when it signed the UN’s racial discrimination treaty in 1966. Prevent Watch was one of eight organisations that had submitted evidence to the Committee ahead of its conclusions. One of our clients, a mother whose child had been referred by their school, flew to Geneva to tell the Committee in person what harm that referral had done to her family. The UK government had a year to respond. When it filed its reply in September 2025, it did not engage with the substance of what the UN Committee had found. It answered different questions […]

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Cloisters logo for prevent referral case CategoriesLatest News Our Cases in the News

Court finds direct discrimination in school’s Prevent referral of Muslim boy

Prevent Watch supported the mother in a stressful period during this case in which Cloisters’ Fred Holker successfully represented the Claimant who, at the age of 13, was the subject of a Prevent referral by a teacher following a playground incident. Fred acted for the Claimant pro bono at trial in the County Court against the education trust, securing findings of direct religion discrimination contrary to ss 10 and 13 Equality Act 2010. The successful claim had been pleaded by Cloisters’ Ameer Ismail, also on a pro bono basis. The Claimant was accused of playground misbehaviour in 2021 which led teachers to form a concern of possible Islamist radicalisation. The Court analysed the manner in which the referral was made, concluding that the teacher had cast the Claimant in terms suffused with religious and violent overtones that went beyond the facts established by an internal investigation. The Court found that […]

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The Critic: Will Burnham enable Islamic extremism?

Our new Prime Minister is desperate to present himself as an ordinary, football-watching, pint-sinking bloke. He even took to Instagram to tell us he calls a bread roll a “barm”, writes Arthur Reynolds for The Critic. No matter how patronising I find this latter-day Bill Shankly routine, if the polls are to be believed, it’s tempting some wavering voters back into the Labour fold. However, the working-class communities Burnham’s targeting may baulk at the company he’s kept. As Mayor of Greater Manchester and in opposition, he repeatedly embraced figures and organisations that, at best, promoted a polarising politics of Muslim victimhood. Read more on The Critic. Related… The Guardian: Burnham calls for ‘toxic’ Prevent strategy to be scrapped

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The Mirror logo CategoriesLatest News

The Mirror: Terrorism referrals rocket as children account for one in three Prevent cases

Referrals to the government’s terrorism prevention programme hit a record high last year – with concerns about extreme right-wing ideology accounting for a fifth of Prevent cases. Latest data showed a huge 39% jump in overall referrals to Prevent, with concerns raised about nearly 10,000 people in the 12 months to September 2025. This was up from 7,279 a year earlier. And alarmingly more than a third related to children aged between 11 and 15. Home Office figures showed 20% of all referrals were in relation to ‘extreme right-wing’ ideologies – more than double those linked to alleged Islamic extremism. The data shows 56% of cases had no fixed ideology attached, while more than 400 were flagged because of a ‘fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks’. Read more on The Mirror.  Related… Press Statement: Home Office Prevent statistics show that a record year is a record failure

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Press Statement: Home Office Prevent statistics show that a record year is a record failure

Prevent Watch responds to Home Office Prevent statistics published today. Home Office figures released today show a record 10,293 Prevent referrals — yet the majority of those referred had no ideology of any kind, and most cases were closed without any action. More than half of those referred were children, some of primary school age, and a striking proportion were autistic or living with mental ill-health. The programme has been turned inside out. The threat Prevent was built around — so-called ‘Islamist extremism’ — now barely features in its own caseload, while the largest group of people it processes fit no ideological category at all. Dr Layla Aitlhadj, Director, Prevent Watch, said: “These record numbers are a record failure — but instead of admitting it, the Government has relabelled these cases as ‘complex’, turning the programme’s failure into the justification for its expansion.” “Record referrals are proof the programme has […]

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Rahman Lowe Secures Landmark Victory In Anti-Zionist belief Discrimination Claim

In a landmark Judgment handed down today, the Honourable Lord Fairley, President of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), dismissed the University of Bristol’s appeal and found that Dr David Miller was discriminated against because of his anti-Zionist beliefs. The EAT upheld the decision of the Employment Tribunal and concluded that Dr Miller was discriminated against because of his philosophical belief that Zionism is inherently racist, imperialist, and colonial, and ought to be opposed. The EAT held that his anti-Zionist beliefs constitute a protected belief under the Equality Act 2010; he was dismissed because he manifested those beliefs and as the dismissal was tainted by discrimination, he was unfairly dismissed. This means that it is unlawful to discriminate against someone because they hold those beliefs. The successful appeal outcome reinforces that controversial beliefs are not excluded from protection under the EqA simply because they generate complaints or public controversy. Read more […]

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AI-driven surveillance and Prevent CategoriesLatest Expert Views Community Expert View Our Expert Views

AI-Powered Surveillance and the Prevent strategy

“When states transfer more power to private entities, the public loses. The government becomes a body designed to service the needs and interests of profit-seeking private entities rather than its citizens. Worse, citizens lose much of their power to hold governments accountable: the government abdicates and transfers responsibility to private actors against which citizens have fewer rights.”[1] This piece examines the creeping infrastructure of AI-powered surveillance in the UK and its implications for the Prevent strategy’s pre-crime framework. Digital ID, Palantir and Oracle In January of this year, the UK government dropped its plans for a mandatory digital ID. This came after almost 3 million signatures on a parliamentary petition opposing digital IDs.[2] Several corporations were in talks of implementing the digital ID apparatus. Palantir Technologies, named after the all-seeing stone in The Lord of the Rings,[3] dropped out of the bid back in October, citing a lack of public […]

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Civil Service World logo for piece on cross-goverment taskforce for Prevent strategy CategoriesLatest News

Civil Service World: Home Office creates cross-government taskforce to bolster Prevent

The Home Office has set up a cross-government taskforce to look at existing multi-agency and safeguarding arrangements, and how they interact with Prevent in the wake of 2024’s Southport killings and the murder of MP David Amess. Details of the taskforce emerged this week in the department’s formal response to peer David Anderson’s Lessons for Prevent report, which was submitted to ministers in July last year. Among his recommendations to government last year, Prevent reviewer Lord Anderson said a Cabinet Office task force should be established to lead exploratory work into the possibility of formally connecting the programme to a broader safeguarding and violence-prevention system. Anderson said the work “cannot be done by any single line department” and that the taskforce should be “answerable to a senior Cabinet Office minister and the cabinet secretary. In her formal response to the report, which was published yesterday, home secretary Shabana Mahmood says […]

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