Category Archives: Counter-terrorism policy

Greenpeace included with neo-Nazis on UK counter-terror list

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Exclusive: Extinction Rebellion and Peta also named in anti-extremism briefing alongside Combat 18 and National Action

A counter-terrorism police document distributed to medical staff and teachers as part of anti-extremism briefings included Greenpeace, Peta and other non-violent groups as well as neo-Nazis, the Guardian has learned.

The guide, produced by Counter Terrorism Policing, is used across England as part of training for Prevent, the anti-radicalisation scheme designed to catch those at risk of committing terrorist violence.

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Extinction Rebellion could sue police over extremist ideology listing

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Group threatens action after being named in guide designed to help prevent terrorism

Extinction Rebellion is threatening legal action against counter-terrorism police for what it said was the illegal listing of the group an extremist ideology in a guide designed to help stop terrorist violence.

The Guardian revealed on Friday that counter-terrorism police placed the non-violent protest group on a list of extremist ideologies that should be reported to the authorities running the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme. Police now say that was an error.

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Boris Johnson thrusts London Bridge attack into centre of election battle

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Prime minister says terrorists convicted of the most serious offences should never be released from prison

Boris Johnson on Saturday said that those convicted of the most serious terrorist offences should never be released from prison, as arguments over the blame for Friday’s London Bridge attack were thrust centre stage into the election campaign.

The prime minister reacted to the latest terrorist incident – in which three people died, including the assailant – by promising a package of hardline reforms which also included mandatory minimum 14-year sentences, an end to automatic early release for terrorist and extremism offences, and a new system under which those convicted will have to serve every day of sentences handed down by judges.

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Turkey threatens to send foreign Isis suspects home from next week

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Interior minister said repatriation of alleged terrorists would include those rendered stateless

Turkey will begin deporting foreign members of Islamic State in Turkish custody back to their home countries from next week, the country’s interior minister has said.

Ankara has repeatedly criticised European nations for refusing to take back any of the 1,200 foreign nationals currently held in Turkish prisons on suspicion of links to the terror organisation.

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Home Office faces legal battle over Prevent reviewer

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Human rights campaigners claim Lord Carlile’s appointment undermines review’s credibility

Human rights campaigners have threatened the Home Office with legal action over its appointment of Lord Carlile as the independent reviewer of its anti-radicalisation programme Prevent.

The peer’s appointment, announced this month, was met with criticism from human rights and civil liberties groups, citing his previous on-record support for the Prevent programme.

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Detention of Muslims at UK ports and airports ‘structural Islamophobia’

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Dossier by Cage attacks ‘suspicionless stops’ under anti-terror laws and highlights minuscule rate of convictions

Muslims are being detained at ports and airports for up to six hours by law enforcement using controversial counter-terrorism powers so disproportionately that the practice has become Islamophobic, according to human rights group Cage.

The organisation added there is growing anecdotal evidence that Muslim women are being forced to remove their headscarves when stopped, even though the rate that such stops lead to a conviction is 0.007%, according to Cage’s analysis of 420,000 incidences.

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Counter-terror chief says policing alone cannot beat extremism

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Exclusive: Neil Basu calls for sociologists and criminologists to help tackle terrorism in UK

Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer has said the police and security services are no longer enough to win the fight against violent extremism, and the UK must instead improve community cohesion, social mobility and education.

In his first major interview since taking up his post last year, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu told the Guardian that up to 80% of those who wanted to attack the UK were British-born or raised, which strongly indicated domestic social issues were among the root causes.

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Far-right fundraising not taken seriously by UK, report finds

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Government ‘unwilling’ to engage with financing of extremists, says Whitehall thinktank

An “unwillingness” by the UK government to engage with the threat posed by far-right extremists is creating a vacuum in which such groups can flourish, according to a study by a Whitehall thinktank of their fundraising activities.

The report warns that the focus placed on Islamists has meant that counter-terrorist authorities tasked with looking into financing have made little attempt to understand how far-right individuals and groups raise funds.

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Sajid Javid announces overhaul of espionage and treason laws

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New bill needed to tackle hostile activity by Russia and others, says home secretary

Hostile state actors – spies, assassins or hackers directed by the government of another country – are to be targeted by refreshed espionage and treason laws, the home secretary has announced.

In a speech to security officials in central London, Sajid Javid revealed plans to publish a new espionage bill to tackle increased hostile state activity from countries including but not limited to Russia.

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Far-right terrorism threat is growing, say MI5 and police chiefs

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Andrew Parker and Cressida Dick say numerous plots have been foiled in recent years

Far-right terrorism has been identified as a key threat to the safety and prosperity of the country, according to the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, and Cressida Dick, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police.

Writing in the Times, the pair warned that while Islamist terrorism remains the largest by scale, they are also “concerned about the growing threat from other forms of violent extremism … covering a spectrum of hate-driven ideologies, including the extreme right and left.”

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Second Briton says he wants to be allowed back to UK from Syria

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Jack Letts left the country a year before Shamima Begum and is suspected of joining Isis

A second Briton who left to go to Syria has said he wants to return to the UK. Jack Letts, who is suspected of joining Islamic State, said he missed Britain, but doubted he would ever be allowed to return.

Letts, 23, who was dubbed “Jihadi Jack” by British media and holds dual nationality through his Canadian father, told ITV News he did not believe either nation would help him because “no one really cares”.

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Shamima Begum: I am willing to change to keep British citizenship

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Nineteen-year-old who joined Isis asks UK to show ‘a bit more mercy’ in assessing her case

Shamima Begum has said she is “willing to change”, as she issued a plea to the UK government for “mercy” after the home secretary moved to strip her of her British nationality.

The British-born 19-year-old, who travelled from east London to Syria to join Islamic State in 2015, wants to return from Syria because her newborn son is unwell, and she does not wish to allow him to return to the UK alone.

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UK will not put officials at risk to rescue Isis Britons, says minister

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Ben Wallace says ‘actions have consequences’ as schoolgirl who joined Isis is found in Syria

The security minister, Ben Wallace, has said he would not put officials’ lives at risk to rescue UK citizens who went to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State, insisting “actions have consequences”.

“I’m not putting at risk British people’s lives to go looking for terrorists or former terrorists in a failed state,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

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