Roots of Violent Radicalisation

House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Roots of violent radicalisation Nineteenth Report of Session 2010–12 Volume I Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Additional written evidence is contained in Volume II, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/homeaffairscom Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 31 January 2012 HC 1446 Published on 6 February 2012 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £20.00 The Home Affairs Committee The Home Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies. Current membership Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP (Labour, Leicester East) (Chair) Nicola Blackwood MP (Conservative, Oxford West and Abingdon) James Clappison MP (Conservative, Hertsmere) Michael Ellis MP (Conservative, Northampton North) Lorraine Fullbrook MP (Conservative, South Ribble) Dr Julian Huppert MP (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge) Steve McCabe MP (Labour, Birmingham Selly Oak) Rt Hon Alun Michael MP (Labour & Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth) Bridget Phillipson MP (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South) Mark Reckless MP (Conservative, Rochester and Strood) Mr David Winnick MP (Labour, Walsall North) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/homeaffairscom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Tom Healey (Clerk), Joanna Dodd (Second Clerk), Eleanor Scarnell (Inquiry Manager), Darren Hackett (Senior Committee Assistant), Victoria Butt (Committee Assistant), John Graddon (Committee Support Officer) and Alex Paterson (Select Committee Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 3276; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. Roots of violent radicalisation 1 Contents Report Page 1 Introduction 3 The Committee’s inquiry 3 Context 4 Definitions 4 The terrorist threat 4 Delivery of the Prevent Strategy 6 2 Who is at risk of radicalisation? 7 The scale of radicalisation 7 The drivers of radicalisation 8 3 Where does radicalisation take place? 13 Universities 13 Religious institutions 15 The internet 15 Prisons 16 Other fora 18 4 The Prevent Strategy 19 The Prevent Review 19 Targeting resources proportionate to the threat 19 Supporting sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation 21 Universities 21 The internet 23 Prisons 26 Supporting vulnerable people 28 Funding 28 Methods 29 Community responses to Prevent 30 Proscription 32 Annex A: Conference note 35 Annex B: Note of visit to Belmarsh 38 Annex C: Note of SOAS meeting 41 Conclusions and recommendations 43 Formal Minutes 48 Witnesses 49 2 Roots of violent radicalisation List of printed written evidence 50 List of additional written evidence 50 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 51 Roots of violent radicalisation 3 1 Introduction The Committee’s inquiry 1. On 7 July 2005, 52 people were killed and more than 770 others injured in attacks on the London transport network carried out by four men from West Yorkshire who had been radicalised by the ideology and rhetoric of Al Qa’ida. The nature of the current, deadly threat facing the UK from home-grown terrorism was fully exposed for the first time. This was only one of a number of terrorist plots which caused the British authorities to shift their attention over the past decade from external threats to national security to those lying within the UK borders. Radicalisation is one of four strategic factors identified in the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy, known as CONTEST, that have enabled terrorist groups to grow and flourish.1 Yet four years after 7/7, the reasons why some British-born and raised individuals are vulnerable to violent radicalisation remain unclear. 2. On taking office in 2010, the Coalition Government announced a wholesale review of the Prevent Strategy (often referred to simply as “Prevent”), which was drawn up to tackle violent radicalisation in the UK in the wake of the 7/7 bombings.2 The original strategy had attracted criticism for its alleged exclusive focus on Muslim communities, spying, and unhealthy conflation of law enforcement with integration policy. The outcome of the Prevent Review was published in June 2011. 3. In anticipation of this, we decided in May 2011 to launch an inquiry that would test the evidence base for the Prevent Review and explore issues regarding its implementation. We undertook to examine the root causes of violent radicalisation in the UK, the individuals and groups particularly vulnerable to radicalisation and the locations where this radicalisation tends to take place, in relation to the primary terrorist threats facing the UK. Specifically, we intended to: • determine the major drivers of, and risk factors for recruitment to, terrorist movements linked to (a) Islamic fundamentalism (b) Irish dissident republicanism and (c) domestic extremism; • examine the relative importance of prisons and criminal networks, religious premises, universities and the internet as fora for violent radicalisation; • examine the operation and impact of the current process for proscribing terrorist groups; • consider the appropriateness of current preventative approaches to violent radicalisation, in light of these findings, including the roles of different organisations at national and local level; and • make recommendations to inform implementation of the Government’s forthcoming revised Prevent strategy. 1 HM Government, Contest: The UK’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism, 2011.The other three factors are conflict and instability; ideology; and technology. 2 “Prevent” is one of four strands of CONTEST. The others are “Protect”, “Pursue” and “Prepare”. 4 Roots of violent radicalisation 4. To this end, we took oral evidence on seven occasions between September 2011 and December 2011 and received 17 written submissions. A list of those who gave evidence is appended to our Report. We visited Belmarsh prison to speak to prisoners and staff and held a round-table discussion with a group of students from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. We also held a conference at De Montfort University on 13 December 2011, attended by around 200 people involved in Prevent, including police officers, local authority workers, prison and probation staff, academics, faith leaders, students, community groups and politicians. The conference was addressed by, amongst others, Rev. Jesse Jackson and by Dr. Dipu Moni MP, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, and allowed us to hear a wide range of views which have informed our inquiry to a significant extent. We are grateful to all those who contributed to our inquiry. We are particularly grateful to De Montfort University and the Barrow Cadbury Trust for hosting and supporting our conference. Context Definitions 5. Much of the language used to talk about the issues we consider in our Report is itself the subject of debate. However, whilst we briefly consider the use of language in chapter four, in general we use the Government’s definitions as set out in legislation and the Prevent Strategy: • Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism as “the use or threat of action ... designed to influence the Government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public ... for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.” • Radicalisation is defined in the Prevent Strategy as “the process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism leading to terrorism.” • Extremism is defined in the Prevent Strategy as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We also include in our definition of extremism calls for the death of members of our armed forces, whether in this country or overseas.”3 • “Violent extremism” is considered by the Prevent Strategy to mean the endorsement of violence to achieve extreme ends. The terrorist threat 6. The Government concluded in its Prevent Review that the Strategy should continue to focus on radicalisation linked to the main terrorist threat facing the UK, from groups that are usually collectively referred to as Islamic fundamentalist, Al Qa’ida-related, or Islamist terrorists (we will use this last term). Other than the 7/7 bombings, some of the most high- 3 HM Government, Prevent Strategy, June 2011, Annex A: Glossary of Terms Roots of violent radicalisation 5 profile Islamist plots discovered by the authorities involving British citizens or residents over the last decade included: • the attempt by Richard Reid to detonate explosives in his shoes while on board a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001; • the conviction of Kamel Bourgass for his role in a plot to produce ricin for use in a terrorist attack in London in 2003; • the conviction of five men in 2004 for attempting to produce explosives

Load more