10:55am Tuesday 22nd April 2008
By Matthew Jenkin
ALIENATION of Muslim inmates at a high security prison may be fuelling religious extremism, according to the Chief Inspector of prisons.
A report by Anne Owers revealed a high degree of alienation among the 198 Muslims among the 913 inmates at Belmarsh prison, in Western Way, Thamesmead, and a general mistrust between them and staff.
Despite many Muslim prisoners being held on terrorism charges, the report, published last Tuesday, revealed staff were "insufficiently trained and supported" to counter the spread of extremist views to other Muslim inmates.
It said: "There was a real danger the alienation of Muslim prisoners in general, and the suspicion with which they perceived they were treated, would in fact feed radicalisation."
In a survey on September 10 last year, distributed to all 878 prisoners, one Muslim inmate said: "I've had a racist joke made about my prayer mat. An officer called it a magic carpet and even the other officers were not happy.
"The staff perception of Muslims is quite negative.
"They tar all Muslims with the same brush."
Nearly two-thirds of the 116 Muslims who responded to the survey said they felt unsafe and less than half believed staff treated them with respect.
Muslim imams - the faith's prayer leaders - were introduced at Belmarsh in 1991, but Ms Owers said their roles needed to be strengthened in order to help improve relations between staff and inmates.
A Prison Service spokesman said: "A training programme has been developed with the Prison Service chaplaincy department and race equality action groups to raise staff awareness of the issues surrounding extremism and radicalisation."
Dr Tariq Abbasi, director of the Greenwich Islamic Centre, said: "We need to weed out the extremist elements from our communities and the government must work closely with the vulnerable communities."
In evidence given to a Home Office select committee last November, Belmarsh governor Claudia Sturt warned against demonising Muslims as a group.
She said: "The great majority of my Muslim prisoners have nothing whatsoever to do with Islamist extremism or terrorism, they are just people on criminal charges who happen to be Muslim."
Ms Owers remained positive about the latest report, however, and said: "In spite of its complexities and pressures, Belmarsh is now visibly moving in the right direction, and we hope to report on further progress at the next inspection."
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