Imagine a knock on your door late one night by two non-uniformed police offers. They explain that someone, somewhere has mentioned your “extremist opinions” and they are worried you might “act on them,” whatever that means. They won’t tell you who informed them, but they appear to know an awful lot about what you think. They advise you to come with them for some kind of re-education programme and imply there may be dire consequences if you don’t. Is this some kind of Orwellian nightmare? No. Welcome to 21st century Britain and the Channel Project, part of the government's counter-terrorism
Prevent strategy.
The
Channel Project was started in Lambeth and Lancashire in 2007 before being rolled out to other parts of the UK. Teachers, youth workers, child minders, health and social services, sport clubs, mosques, prisons and women’s forums as well as people working in community initiatives were asked by police to identify individuals they considered vulnerable to radical extremism. The initial focus was on Muslims, following the tube bomb attacks in London in 2005, to identify potential threats before they got involved with violence so police could provide
“a programme of intervention tailored to the individual”
