Mosques have been critical of the anti-radicalisation strategy 'Prevent'. Photo: dgeezer. Flickr. “More people die from bee stings than terrorism in the UK.” Dr Salman Butt smiles and shakes his head. By now, he’s pretty tired of the myriad confusions that clutter the way we talk about terrorism and extremism. And little wonder. Dr Butt has himself been labelled a ‘non-violent domestic extremist', falling foul of the notorious 'Prevent' legislation that aims to identify nascent extremist sentiments in order to rout them from public institutions such as schools and universities.
In September 2015, a government issued a press release entitled: ‘PM’s Extremism Task Force: Tackling Extremism in Universities and Colleges top of the agenda’. It named Dr Butt as an dangerous speaker; a mouthpiece for the kind of extremist agenda that should, according to Prevent, have no place in public institutions. As the Editor in Chief of the website ‘Islam in the Twenty-First Century’, Dr Butt is accused of expressing opinions contrary to ‘British values’, and has therefore been labelled a ‘non-violent domestic extremist’. To him, this is a ludicrous mis-application of the term. “This press release didn't mention anyone who's been ostracized by other muslims, such as Anjem Choudary, or anyone who actually caused violence or supports ISIS. The people that it actually mentioned were on record distancing themselves from ISIS and condemning political violence. So that was when a lot of people thought, they've gone a bit too far now. They’re just mentioning random Muslim speakers.”
Indeed, Butt has espoused some opinions unlikely to win him friends on university campuses, which tend to leand socially liberal. He's previously stated that homosexual acts are not permitted by Islam. But according to him, these statements don’t merit his being targeted as an extremist. And you might be forgiven for assuming that the government should broadly agree with him on this point; numerous Conservative MPs, having expressed similarly abhorrent homophobic sentiments, are left to pursue political careers untroubled by accusations of extremism. “Contrary to popular belief, I've never denounced British values, I have no issues with them. But I would fight for somebody's right to do so in a peaceful, non-insulting manner. I would want to live in a society where someone can do that. They're not committing crimes, if they're just saying 'what's so good about democracy or tolerance?'. Why not let them have that conversation?” For Butt, this was a call to action. He is in the midst of a legal challenge to UK Prevent legislation, on the grounds that it constitutes a violation of the human right to free speech. If the High Court rules in favour of Butt, declaring that Prevent does indeed constitute a violation of free speech, it could undermine the legal and constitutional basis of the entire strategy.
