As a Muslim who’s been unfairly reported by a stranger, this counter-terrorism police course for citizens is terrifying

I know what it’s like to be thought of as an extremist simply for existing. Encouraging people to effectively spy on their neighbours in a climate like this is chilling

When I was a teenager, several years after the bombing of the Twin Towers, I often travelled alone by plane to see my dad on internal flights. On one flight, I got up to go to the toilet. When I got back the air steward was searching through my hand luggage. I had been gone less than 10 minutes. The grown man sitting next to me had reported me.

I then had to sit awkwardly beside him – The Man who Thought I was a Terrorist – for the whole flight, in silence. Why had he reported me? Had I been doing anything suspicious? I highly doubt it. Getting racially profiled at the airport by security guards has now become a scary inside joke for many people of colour but it adds an extra element of danger when members of the public are encouraged to get involved.

Prevent, the government counter-terrorism strategy which, among other measures, encourages teachers to report students they believe to be radicalised to the police, was launched in 2006 under New Labour. Since the expansion of the strategy, however, there have been reports that it is ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst, in addition to mounting evidence that it disproportionally targets Muslim children.

A growing concern in education, the National Union of Teachers voted in favour of scrapping Prevent in 2016 over its role in causing suspicion in the classroom. With cases such as a primary school child having their details on the Metropolitan Police’s anti-radicalisation records and only 1 in 10 Prevent referrals receiving further support, the scepticism is hardly surprising. Remember, as well as issues of unfair targeting, this is a system that stores incredibly sensitive personal information in a secret database, which suggests that suspicions against children may well be used against them in later years, whether action is needed or not.

But it doesn’t stop there. Lord Carlile, who was appointed as an independent reviewer after a probe into Prevent was launched (despite calling it “completely unnecessary) has just been removed from the Prevent programme. But the police have now called on the public to take an online Counter Terrorism training course for the first time, enabling them to become Counter Terrorism (CT) Citizens.

Elements of the course include spotting “signs of suspicious behaviour” which would then be reported to the police. The course is 45 minutes long, which is apparently all the training you need to be given police approval to report your Muslim neighbours for, say, “inspecting CCTV cameras in an unusual way”.

A new poll has illustrated that 45 per cent of the general public believe Islam “threatens the British way of life.” Our current prime minister, Boris Johnson, has stated that “Islam is the problem”, as well as remarks like “when is someone going to get 18th century on Islam's medieval ass?” in the past. What happens when you couple this prejudice with the state encouraging you to report anyone you find suspicious to the police? History has shown us that the public will often report each other for personal reasons or vendettas and 45 minutes of an online course will not negate that. According to Counter Terrorism Policing UK, 12,000 “CT Citizens” have now signed up to the course.

Regimes have often used the public to spy on each other, reporting back bits of gossip or suspicious neighbours. In 30’s Germany, you had the Blockleiter and in East Berlin from the 1970s until the 90s, you had the Stasi. People aren’t exactly strangers to reporting their neighbours because of grudges or just out of plain malice. And with Islamophobia and racism already embedded in the fabric of this country, it’s likely this happens more often than we realise. Just look at the number of people who have shared shocking and hurtful stories of racism and prejudice directed at them since the election.

I don’t know why that man reported me all those years ago, but I can guess. Although he’s the only member of the public who has done such a thing, I have been body searched or had my things “randomly checked” too many times at the airport to think his suspicion that I was a terrorist was a one-off. I’ve also personally been called a “traitor,” asked how I feel about 9/11, seen my mother asked the same question. I’ve had “jokes” aimed at me in the workplace about chopping people’s heads off and I know other British Muslims, especially women who wear the hijab or burqa, have had it much worse. Islamophobia is not just limited to the EDL or Britain First, eight years ago Baroness Warsi commented that Islamophobia had passed the dinner table test. It is normalised in the UK. The fact that this seems to have been ignored in the call to train up the public as “CT Citizens,” is very worrying.

If more and more people are encouraged to report other members of the public to the police for “suspicious behaviour,” it will encourage an atmosphere of fear and suspicion in daily life and not just for British Muslims. A 45-minute course is not enough to dispel ingrained prejudices many people have about race, sexuality, religion or class. If this course becomes widespread, I fear that like Prevent, it will not be effective in actually tackling terrorism and instead encourage an atmosphere of suspicion where your neighbour can report you simply because they don’t like the way you look. What a terrifying prospect.