At a full Council meeting more local organisations and the two remaining Mosques who were still to publicly distance themselves from the PVE agenda submitted a statement in the form of questions to the leader of the council regarding PVE. This statement was independent from the Crisis Group initiative and signatories who were distancing themselves from PVE the first time include; Alexandra Road Mosque, Community Education Trust, Cumberland Road Mosque, IMAAD, Reading Muslim Council & Whitely Muslim Education Trust. All four Mosques in Reading have now distanced themselves from PVE now.
Below are some of the key points from the statement:
‘The undersigned organisations, representing a broad section of Reading’s Muslims, are very concerned that the new CONTEST 2 strategy and NI35 indicators are going to prove counterproductive…. Given that alienation is one of the key drivers for ‘violent extremism’, this strategy is going to have the opposite effect to the one intended….there is strong interest from organisations to continue to work through the mainstream to decrease alienation and marginalisation and increase community cohesion in Reading. However, the undersigned organisations believe this must be outside of and clearly independent from the Prevent framework, as the issues with CONTEST 2 are insurmountable in that it stigmatises all Muslims as potential ‘extremists’ due to their personal beliefs and convictions.’
An additional question was submitted by Mr Khan regarding if the Council will acknowledge that the majority of the Muslim community have rejected the PVE agenda. Unfortunately the answer has much to be desired:
QUESTION NO. 4 Preventing Violent Extremism
Despite the existence of over 20 Muslim organisations and Mosques in Reading there is only one Muslim group that is currently ‘on-board’ with the Preventing Violent Extremism agenda in Reading. This organisation has no credibility at the grass roots regarding PVE as they have not consulted the community that they claim to represent on this issue and it would appear that they are being dictated to. Does the leader of the council acknowledge that the majority of Muslims in Reading are not ‘on board’ with this work and if she disagrees with this assertion can she inform us how the Muslim community can articulate this position such that she will acknowledge it?
REPLY by Councillor Lovelock (Leader of the Council): There has been a range of activities to engage groups across Reading with the direction, shape and delivery of Prevent based work. It is recognised that this is challenging and that work continues to be needed to support knowledge and understanding of the agenda in Reading. It is disappointing that our local approach and activities in response to the national agenda have not been fully clear to some people, and that some misinformation appears to be circulating, which needs to be further explained. We have always understood that there are concerns about the way in which this has been framed nationally. Many people from across all our communities remain in dialogue with us, sometimes in critical dialogue, but are nevertheless supportive of what we are trying to do. We must continue to find ways to engage with the widest number of residents so that people do understand that we are focussed on community cohesion and challenging extremism from all sections of the community and that this work is not just aimed at Muslims. I think it is important for people to understand that the Council and its partners do not have a choice about whether to engage with this national agenda. What we have sought to do is work with a range of community groups to make this appropriate for Reading. We need to ensure that we engage with as many people as possible as we take the work forward.
Filed under: PVE
