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Shawcross unlikely to be able to judge extremism
What do you do with a neocon who thinks Islam is a ‘terrifying problem’ in Europe and wrote a book to justify torturing terror suspects? Make him the ‘independent reviewer’ for Prevent. SOLOMON HUGHES reports
William Shawcross

WILLIAM SHAWCROSS, the “independent reviewer” of the government’s “counter-extremism” policy Prevent, is worried that people who object to what they call his “track record of hostility to Islam and Muslims” are twisting his words.

So I want to do him the favour of quoting his words directly. Though frankly they sound to me like an authoritarian extremist, justifying torture.

Under Prevent, teachers, doctors and social workers must refer people they think are influenced by “extremism” to the police. In practice this means mostly Islamist extremism with some small attention to far-right extremism.

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