After Paris, Luton wages its own battle for hearts and minds of homegrown radicals
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Version 0 of 1. Just off Dunstable Road, obscured behind the scaffolding for yet another extension, is the redbrick frame of what was once the biggest purpose-built mosque in Europe. Inside, after midday prayers, Mohammed Shafait is wondering why the government is belittling his mosque’s efforts to counter extremism. “They don’t want to know. They should know our intentions by visiting and working with us, but no,” says the president of Luton Central Mosque in Bury Park, home to the majority of the town’s 50,000 Muslims. Yet the police have been unable to ignore Bury Park for some time. In the last 12 months, Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command, SO15, has arrested, charged or taken action against 15 people from the neighbourhood. One former resident, Abu Rahin Aziz, 32, was killed four months ago during a US airstrike on Raqqa. Aziz is reported to have met the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, while in Syria, and learnt bombmaking techniques. In the aftermath of the attacks on the French capital, attention centred on the Brussels district of Molenbeek, described as Europe’s “jihadi central”, where police conducted a series of raids in connection with the Paris massacres. Although Bury Park cannot be considered in the same European context, officials and police concede that the area has established a reputation for extremism. Far-right groups brand the district an “Islamic ghetto” while Luton features periodically in terror plots. A former resident was part of the fertiliser bomb gang that planned to blow up Kent’s Bluewater shopping centre. It was also where the 7 July bombers met before attacking London’s transport network in 2005. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, David Cameron chose a Bury Park school to unveil his counter-extremism strategy last month. The prime minister’s plan to tackle subversive Islamist doctrine has been bolted on to previous counter-radicalisation policies rolled out in places such as Luton in the wake of the London bombings. Ten years on, with the international threat from extremism intensifying and with more than 750 Britons having left to fight in Syria and Iraq, are the UK’s measures actually working? The principal counter-radicalisation project remains Prevent, which funds community groups and schemes countering the politics of extremism and trains people to identify the telltale signs of radicalisation. Yet critics argue its effectiveness is compromised by the widespread scepticism among Muslims towards the programme. “It’s really unfortunate that Prevent has got a bad brand – everyone who works in it will admit that – but it is working, because we know about a number of foiled plots,” says Irfan Chishti, a member of Luton borough council’s three-strong Prevent team. Police, too, readily admit that surmounting distrust is an issue. “Prevent is liked by some, disliked by others,” says Detective Chief Inspector Matthew Thompson from the Eastern Region Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Unit, which covers Luton. Most damagingly, the suspicion lingers that Prevent is a means for the government to collate toxic gossip on Muslims. Rob Burton, head of the Centre for Youth and Community Development (CYCD) in Bury Park, says: “The difficulty with the current policies and processes is that there’s a lot of mistrust – which, bluntly, is about the government spying on Muslims, wanting people to ‘shop’ their neighbours.” So wary have elements of the Muslim community become towards the government’s approach to extremism that Burton says his organisation does not accept financial support that might entail “grassing” on the local community. “We have to make clear to funders that is something we’re not prepared to do,” he says. To counter such qualms, the police are attempting to rebrand Prevent by selling the concept of counter-radicalisation as a safeguarding issue, emphasising the reality that travelling to Syria involves entering a conflict zone. Thompson says: “If a teacher or social worker saw the signs of child abuse or domestic violence, they would have confidence in reporting them. The really important part is stopping more people from going, I think we can do that, but the police cannot do that alone. We rely on people identifying the signs.” On occasion, signs have been missed to the extent that entire families have abandoned the terraces of Bury Park for the caliphate of Isis – most notoriously a family of 12 including a one-year-old baby. The Mannan family remain in Syria. In September a 33-year-old woman was arrested at Luton airport, on her way to Syria with her four children. One of the biggest challenges facing counter-radicalisation experts is how to reach those vulnerable to the extremist narrative – a conundrum that some concede has yet to be solved. “It’s difficult getting through to these people because these are the ones who fall through the gaps,” says Tanvir Munir, general secretary at Luton Central Mosque, explaining that they have hired an English-speaking imam specifically to challenge the Isis narrative during Friday prayers. How many individuals are at risk is not known, although Bedfordshire’s police and crime commissioner, Olly Martins, claimed in the wake of the Paris killings that there were 120 Muslims in the county whom officers were trying to prevent becoming radicalised. Martins believes Bedfordshire has “one of the highest concentrations of dangerous and active Islamist extremists” in Britain. Chishti says that one of the most crucial elements of deradicalisation is the speed with which individuals are offered theological rebuttals to extremist assertions. “Atrocities like Paris bring the whole agenda to the fore again, but for me underline the importance of having the conversation early on,” he says. “Extremist rhetoric is by nature a one-track narrative: you can counter it by simply offering a different viewpoint.” Yet gaps remain in the systems for spotting the early signs of radicalisation. Munir recently asked the headmaster of a Luton secondary school where 95% of the pupils are Muslim what measures existed to detect the signs of radicalisation. “When I asked him how he plans to challenge or recognise extremism, he couldn’t give me an answer.” Other schools, however, are firmly on board. At the CYCD’s nursery in Bury Park, staff are trained to refer individuals to Channel, an offshoot of Prevent that supports people identified at risk of being drawn into violent extremism. Pre-school manager Tamina Haque reveals how she alerted Channel officials after coming across an alarming message on Facebook. “It was all sorted out within 48 hours, no problem,” she says. Being able to confront potential issues quickly and without criminal action is, say police, starting to restore trust among the community. “People are realising they can share their concerns without the fear of someone being arrested, which has probably been a fear in the past. The community is starting to come on board,” says Thompson. Such progress, he hopes, will be complemented by a number of other initiatives being rolled out in Luton, including a grassroots scheme to “neutralise” the extremist group al-Muhajiroun, whose continued presence antagonises community relations. Other measures include internet training for parents to monitor what their children are reading online. In the meantime, Luton’s reputation for extremism will continue to frustrate those employed to challenge it. Chishti says: “Why is the issue so high-profile in Luton? There’s no real answer to that. That’s something that, as an authority, we’re still trying to grapple with.” |