Denmark: Moderate imams answer to prison radicalization

Jon Olsen, of the Danish Institute for International Studies studied radicalization of Muslims in prisons for several years and has recently published a study on the subject. His study is part of a greater attempt to map the radicalization of Muslims in Europe.

After speaking with prison employees, Jon Olsen's opinion is that there is radicalization going on, but that it is not widespread. He thinks the best way to prevent it is by employing moderate imams.

They can ensure that newly-faithful Muslims develop according to good role models rather than the contrary. Without access to imams there's a risk that strong prisoners with extreme interpretations of Islam will strengthen their position as religious authorities and will find people for their religious cause.

It's well-known that many receive extreme points of view during their prison time. The prison systems leads prisoners to group themselves according to their different characteristics: what crime they committed, where they come from etc. Many of Muslim background suddenly become aware of their faith in prison and keep a distance from non-believers. By dividing the word into the believer and the non-believers, the radical Islamist puts himself in a position to exclude others, and not as a victim of other's exclusion.

Once outside prison, the new-found identity loses its meaning for most, but several go further. The most extreme case is the shoe-bomber, who tried to blow up a plane from France to the US with the help of explosives hidden in his shoe. He converted to Islam in a British prison.

Olsen says it is important that imams be given the opportunity to keep in touch with prisoners even after they've left prison, to ensure that they do not fall prey to radical recruiters, and link up with moderate mosque communities.

All prisoners in Danish prisons have a right to meet a representative of their faith but for Muslims that's more difficult than for Christians. All Danish prisons and closed institutes have an affiliated priest, but only Nyborg prison employs an imam. All prisons have a church room, but only Vestre prison has a proper prayer room. In other prisons every Friday Muslims must find a place for their Friday prayers and clean it up before they can begin prayers.

Tove Brøchner, deputy head of the Prison and Probation Service didn't want to comment on the issue of radicalization in prisons but said that there are more imams on the way. She points out that the service has two work-groups which are changed with giving their recommendations until the summer. The groups will prepare employment criteria to ensure that prison imams recognize democracy and can encourage the prisoners to leave crime.

Sources: DR, Study site (Danish)

See also: Denmark: Teaching prison guards Arabic

1 comment:

personalrep1 said...

Islam Is Murder, Rape, Slavery, Looting, Sex with Little Girls, Terror, Hate

By
Larry Houle
http://www.godofreason.com
intermedusa@yahoo.com

Muhammad created Islam as a criminal Mafia enterprise to make war against infidels, murder those infidels who refused to convert to Islam or pay a devastating submission tax (jizya) (criminal extortion) enslave their women and children, rape and breed them like cattle, loot their property and share 80% of the looted proceeds with the criminal Muslim jihadists with 20% going to Muhammad. If no fighting was involved then 100% of the proceeds went to Muhammad.

Islam is on a holy mission decreed by Allah to conquer the world by whatever means necessary and make Islam- the only religion and Muslims the only people. This means the extermination or conversion by force or the threat of death or slavery of 5 billion people. The Koran is a blueprint for mass murder and the creation of a total totalitarian state with all human beings living in total submission to the will of Allah as expressed by the ETERNAL LAWS OF ALLAH (the ANTI GOD) in the Koran.
Murdering infidels, stealing their property, raping their women and little girls, selling into slavery the women and little girls the Muslim men did not want to keep as sex slaves, breeding them for profit and the imposition of the devastating jizya (submission) tax on the conquered peoples funded the Islamic armies allowing them to conquer more infidel nations, taking more slaves, more jizya, more sex slaves – a vicious deadly circle. These evil criminal acts are Islam - murder, looting, rape, and slavery.

Muhammad invented Islam and Allah (the Anti God) and created fake revelations from this bogus Allah and presented them as the ETERNAL LAWS OF GOD. This ANTI GOD - Allah was presented as the same God worshipped by Christians and Jews.

This allowed Muhammad to morally justify criminal acts as holy duties sanctioned by God to be rewarded on earth by unlimited wealth of booty, unlimited source of sex provided by sex slaves and future wealth by breeding and selling slaves. And for those Muslims who splay and were slain in carrying out these evil criminal acts of the ANTI GOD were guaranteed accession to a Paradise of big breasted, lustrous eyed virgins who re – generate as virgins after each sex act to be molested by these righteous killers for all eternity.

When President Bush stood at the podium in Dubai and declared that Islam was a noble religion that had been hijacked by Islamic terrorists, he was a dimini of the first order.

The Saudis have murdered at least 2000 US service men in Iraq. The Saudi government has been behind most of the suicide bombers in Iraq in a desperate attempt to overthrow the Shiites.

The reality is that Islam is not a religion but an evil ideology.

Terms like Islamic terrorists, Islamo - Fascists gives tremendous creditability to Islam. It perpetuates the myth that Islam is a wonderful religion of peace and love that has been hi – jacked and perverted by a few bad apples of evil Islamo – Fascists, Islamic militants, Islamic Fundamentalists, jihadists, Wahhabism, radical Islam, political Islam, Islamists etc
There has been no hijacking. There has been no perversion. These demented souls are following exactly the teachings of the Koran and in the footsteps of the Prophet - Muhammad.

Osma bin Laden is a true Muslim - a holy man of the Koran following EXACTLY the teachings of Muhammad.
Islam is an ideology of murder, hate, terror,. It is an ideology of war. The Koran is a book of war. This war is permanent until ALL infidels have been converted to Islam, agree to pay a submission tax or have been murdered.