Closet extremists force terror prevention teams to adopt new tactics
COUNTER-TERROR TEAMS are being forced to find different tactics to deal with the growing number of potential extremists who refuse to engage with the authorities or sign up to anti-radicalisation schemes.
The task of dealing with people with entrenched extremist views but who have not committed a criminal offence that could see them prosecuted is “a real challenge”, according to the head of the Prevent scheme in Yorkshire and the North East. A report seen by The Yorkshire Post says that disrupting those who seek to radicalise others where there is insufficient evidence to prosecute under the Terrorism Act has become a major area of work in the last year.
There has been a rise in the number of referrals to Prevent, which aims to stop people being drawn into violent extremism, particularly in the weeks after the terror attacks in Manchester and London.
This has resulted in a greater number of people identified as being at risk of being drawn into extremism but who will not sign up for the Channel support scheme.
Detective Superintendent Nik Adams, regional co-ordinator for Prevent, said: “They are basically saying ‘you can go and get stuffed, I am going to keep doing my extremist stuff and there is nothing you can do about it, because I
know I am not crossing a criminal line’. It may be individuals who are seeking to go out and speak at different venues and are effectively trying to indoctrinate people with extremist thought, they are very careful about the lines they cross in terms of inciting racial hatred, glorifying acts of terrorism, but they are people who are having a really negative impact on their communities.
“So we would look at everything from, have they got car insurance when they are driving to and from that venue, to working with those venues and saying ‘do you realise what this person is likely to say when they speak here, here is what we would suggest is a good policy the local authority have developed around ethical values and considerations to make when offering your venue to groups that want to use it for events, and we would suggest you don’t allow this to take place’.
“What we haven’t got is the ability to arrest that person under terrorism legislation or prosecute them.”
He stressed that the same tactics would not be used for those who pose a lower risk, citing the example of a 16-year-old saying Muslims should not be allowed into the UK at school.
“If you then get a situation where you are trying to engage with that family and mum and dad don’t want to engage in the Channel programme, we wouldn’t then be going down the same route with that individual, we would look at other ways of getting support in there.
“If someone poses a really significant risk because they are already well on that journey, to potentially becoming the next (Manchester bomber) Salman Abedi, we are going to have to take more robust intervention to prevent that from happening.” It follows news reported in
The Yorkshire Post yesterday that community projects are getting thousands of pounds from a police fund to encourage people to engage with the authorities in parts of Yorkshire. A senior counter-terrorism official described the risk posed by areas whose culture is out-of-step with life in modern Britain in creating opportunities for its vulnerable members to be radicalised.