UK police identify 200 children as 'potential terrorists'
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
London, March 28, IRNA -- At least two hundred schoolchildren in the UK, some as young as 13, have been identified as potential terrorists in a police-run intervention project that so far covers only six areas of the country, according to press reports Saturday.
The controversial scheme, launched 18 months ago, aims to spot youngsters who are 'vulnerable' to so-called Islamic radicalization.
Once identified the children are subject to a 'program of intervention tailored to the needs of the individual'.
The number, which has jumped from just 10 since June last year, was said to have been revealed by Britain's most senior officer in charge of terror prevention, Sir Norman Bettison, who is the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police in northern England.
"What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'," Bettison told the Independent newspaper.
"The challenge is to intervene and offer guidance, not necessarily to prosecute them, but to address their grievance, their growing sense of hate and potential to do something violent in the name of some misinterpretation of a faith," he said.
The chief constable denied accusations that the scheme, called the Channel project, was criminalizing Muslim communities, saying it was targeted at 'would-be terrorists who happen to be cloaking themselves in Islamic rhetoric'.
The program is run by the Association of Chief Police Officers, who ask teachers, parents and other community figures to be vigilant for signs that may indicate an attraction to extreme views or susceptibility to being 'groomed' by radicalizers.
Funded by the Home Office, it involves officers working alongside Muslim communities to identify impressionable children who are at risk of radicalisation or who have shown an interest in extremist material -- on the internet or in books.
The project was originally piloted in Lancashire, northwest England and one London borough in 2007 before being extended in February last year to West Yorkshire, the Midlands, Bedfordshire, north of London and South Wales.
It is due to be rolled out to the rest of London and other areas in northern, central and southern England, but it is not known how many Muslim children will be eventually targeted.
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End News / IRNA / News Code 410916
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