Tania Kent
A freedom of information request (FOI) has exposed the existence of a covert spying operation by the Conservative government against primarily young British Muslims, through the setting up a fake website.
“This is Woke,” a social media network on Facebook and Instagram targeted at young people which describes itself as the work of a “media/news company” that is engaging “in critical discussions around Muslim identity, tradition and reform,” was in fact created by a media company on behalf of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) at the Home Office.
The revelation, after its exposure by news journal Middle Eastern Eye (MEE), produced outrage among many of the 75,000 followers of the site. Following the FOI request, the OSCT refused to disclose details to MEE about the network. It would not explain the reason it was created, claiming that to do so would “prejudice the national security of the UK.”
The OSCT told MEE that national security concerns were “of overriding importance” and that the “Disclosure of information about ‘This Is Woke’ would open up detailed information about organisations and individuals who are engaged in the delivery of, and who are supporting activities to prevent terrorism.”
This strongly suggests that the government has been storing information on the users of the website and particularly those who may have made critical comments about government policy, especially in relation to military operations by Britain in the Middle East, as well as having many spies in and around oppositional organisations.
The content of the “This Is Woke” Facebook page and Instagram feed was created for the OSCT by a London-based communications company, Breakthrough Media. The name of the network comes from a popular expression, being “woke,” referring to people who are conscious of social injustice, especially in opposition to racism.
Videos on the site talk about reasons for wearing the hijab as well as gender relations and extremism. One video, which has been shared on Facebook more than 1.7 million times, is called “It’s time to hold extremism to account for terrorism, not Islam.”
The Home Office confirmed to BBC News its involvement with “This is Woke,” saying, “We are committed to using all of the tools available to counter the threat from terrorism in the UK.”
It added, “The Home Office works in partnership with a range of organisations from across civil society, industry, private and public sectors to reduce vulnerabilities to organised criminal, extremist and terrorist threats in the UK.”
The project is part of the UK’s counter-radicalisation programme known as Prevent. As part of this programme, a secretive unit within the OSCT called the Research Information and Communications Unit (RICU) has for several years been mounting covert propaganda campaigns.
After an overhaul of Prevent in 2011, Theresa May, then the UK’s home secretary, told a parliamentary committee which provides some oversight of the OSCT that RICU was “road-testing some quite innovative approaches to counter-ideological messages.”
Internal RICU documents seen by MEE show that these messages are intended “to effect behavioural and attitudinal change” among what the unit terms “Prevent audiences.” These are defined as British Muslims, particularly males, aged 15 to 39.
Breakthrough Media, a private-sector contractor, says privately in internal papers that its work on behalf of the unit is intended to “promote a reconciled British Muslim identity”—that is to launch an ideological campaign in defence of British imperialist interests.
Breakthrough has recently changed its name to Zinc Network, a move that started in Australia, where the company had been caught persuading Muslims and a Christian clergyman to promote Australian government policies, including support for military intervention in Syria, without explicitly informing these individuals that it was working for the government.
“This Is Woke” is just a small part of the material being produced in the UK under the direction of RICU. In other internal documents, the unit says it is working “at an industrial scale and pace.”
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