Muslim Love for Criminals
France struggles to fight radical Islam in its jails
By Alexandria Sage
VILLEPINTE, France | Tue May 7, 2013
(Reuters) - In France, the path to radical Islam often begins with a
minor offence that throws a young man into an overcrowded, violent jail
and produces a hardened convert ready for jihad.
With the country on heightened security alert since January when French
troops began fighting al Qaeda-linked Islamists in Mali, authorities
are increasingly worried about home-grown militants emerging from
France's own jails.
But despite government efforts to tackle the problem, conditions behind
bars are still turning young Muslims into easy prey for jhadist
recruiters, according to guards, prison directors, ex-inmates,
chaplains and crime experts interviewed over the last few months by
Reuters.
"I have parents who come to me and say: 'My son went in a dealer and
came out a fundamentalist'," said Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the mosque
in Drancy, a gritty suburb north of Paris.
Malian Islamists have warned France it is a target for attacks, most
recently in a video that came to light on Tuesday. This has added to
concern in a country which, according to the Europol police agency,
arrested 91 people in 2012 on suspicion of what it categorized as
religiously-inspired terrorism.
These numbers are by far the highest for any European Union country,
although tiny when compared with France's estimated 5 to 6 million
Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom are peaceful, law-abiding
citizens.
France, which has Europe's biggest Muslim population, is not alone.
International studies show that prison radicalization is a problem in
countries ranging from Britain and the United States to Afghanistan.
However, France stands out because over half its inmates are estimated
to be Muslim, many from communities blighted by poverty and
unemployment.
The two ethnic Chechen brothers suspected of last month's Boston
bombings, while not former convicts, further underline the threat posed
by "lone wolf" militants - young men from immigrant communities acting
alone or in small groups who are lured into violent Islam.
One such was Mohamed Merah, who killed four Jews and three soldiers
last year in and around the southern city of Toulouse. This marked the
worst attack on French soil since 1995 bombings on the France's
underground train network by Algeria's Armed Islamic Group (GIA) that
killed eight and wounded scores.
Merah, 23, spent time in jail for violent theft. Another suspected
French Islamist was radicalized behind bars before being shot by police
in October.
In March an Islamist suspect was arrested on accusations of plotting an
imminent bomb attack on French soil. He had spent five months in jail
last year for drugs and theft offences.
"We're faced with an external enemy in Mali, but also an enemy from
within who is the product of radicalization," said Interior Minister
Manuel Valls, who acknowledged that Merah's killing spree had revealed
a serious lapse in intelligence.
"They start as minor delinquents, move into selling drugs, sometimes do
prison time and convert to radical Islam and hate towards the West," he
told local media in February.
"A GOOD SCHOOL"
Noisy, dirty and smelling of garbage, Villepinte is the most crowded
jail in the Paris region, called the "jungle" by guards. France's
prisons watchdog, after a 2009 visit, described its inmates as "young,
undisciplined and totally uncontrollable".
Brawls occur weekly and staff, many of them trainees, live in fear of
attack. In January an optometrist was knifed in the eye with a pair of
scissors. Absenteeism is sky-high among guards, who say they are
overwhelmed by the daily challenge of keeping order.
"Islamic radicalization is a real curse in most of our prisons,"
Villepinte guard Blaise Gangbazo told Reuters. "But in tough jails like
ours it comes about even more easily. It's a good school."
France's prison population has grown by a third in the past decade,
partly due to policies under conservative governments of handing down
heavy sentences on repeat petty offenders.
No official data exist but sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar says about
half the 67,674 prison population is Muslim, rising to 70 percent in
some urban areas. This disproportionate ratio of young, disadvantaged
Muslims is added to a toxic mix of overcrowding, overtaxed guards and a
lack of mainstream Muslim chaplains to discourage radicalization.
Vulnerable young men typically arrive in jail, isolated from family and
friends at a time of personal crisis, and become susceptible to
recruitment by radicals. One such case was Karim Mokhtari, who at 18
was jailed for over six years for a botched robbery in which a man was
shot.
While in jail in the northern city of Amiens, he met a soft-spoken
older inmate who consoled him, invited him to pray and encouraged him
to read the Koran in Arabic. "When you arrive in prison you feel
completely abandoned. You get there and you need to find some
strength," said Mokhtari.
"You're seeking hope and when someone holds out a hand, you take it,"
he said. However, in a subsequent encounter the new friend urged him to
"kill the infidels wherever you find them".
"The idea was to go get myself trained and become a violent Jihadist,"
said Mokhtari, adding that the recruiters work on inmates' hostility to
the prison system and to a country where they often have been unable to
find work.
Nearly two decades ago Mokhtari resisted such pressure. Today, aged 35,
he works with youth to keep them out of prison and has co-written a
book, "Redemption", about his experiences.
Prison workers say the vast majority of Muslim inmates are not
radicalized. Yet leaked U.S. diplomatic cables from 2005 cite a warning
by French officials that the prisons and poor suburban neighborhoods
were top recruitment areas for radical Islamists, and refer to a report
by French intelligence services describing radicalized prisoners as
"time bombs".
Chaotic jails bear the brunt of overcrowding due to constant arrivals
of uncharged suspects, and in cells or the yard, petty hoodlums quickly
cross paths with serious criminals.
"It's the little guys who bother us the most, because on the inside
they meet the big guys. Then the consequences are bad," said Gangbazo,
the Villepinte guard. "At our level, the guards are powerless against
that."
UNDER THE RADAR
Justice Minister Christiane Taubira warned foreign journalists in March
against overestimating the threat of prison radicalization, but added
it was "certainly worrying".
Asked how authorities were tackling the problem, she cited measures to
transfer inmates found to be proselytising to other jails, aiming to
disrupt any recruitment efforts to radicalism.
This policy helps to control those prisoners already identified as
radical Islamists, but not all recruiters have been convicted under
France's anti-terrorism laws. The task is tougher with inmates serving
terms for unrelated offences who have turned to radical Islam unnoticed
by the authorities.
Untrained staff tend to confuse devout Muslims with potential radicals,
said sociologist Khosrokhavar, author of a 2004 study commissioned by
the Justice Ministry that was the first to highlight the level of
Muslims in French jails.
"The whole attitude to radicalization is outdated," he said. "Those who
become radicals are precisely those who do not show it. It happens
without any kind of external signs like growing one's beard."
Another hurdle is that France's internal prison intelligence unit,
known as EMS-3, has no judicial power, complicating moves to share
information with the DCRI domestic security service.
"We send up a lot of pieces of information when we spot them except
there's not enough information coming down to us from the DCRI," said
Jimmy Delliste, director of the Saint-Etienne jail just outside Lyon.
"That's a real problem."
To make matters worse, the prisons' EMS-3 is controlled by the justice
ministry while the interior ministry directs the DCRI, both with
distinct cultures, hierarchies and goals.
REAL OR FAKE RADICAL?
One way to thwart radical Islam in prison is through prison chaplains
able to counter such messages with moderate teachings, security experts
agree. But here too, France is falling short.
Despite a prison population dominated by Muslims, France has about 160
Muslim chaplains versus 700 Christian ones. Some estimate more than 80
percent of Muslim inmates never see a chaplain, increasing the risk of
falling prey to radicals.
That contrasts with Britain, where about 200 Muslim chaplains address a
Muslim prison population estimated at only a third of France's.
Abdelhak Eddouk, who was chaplain at the Fleury-Merogis jail outside
Paris for nine years before he resigned recently, estimated at least
480 Muslim chaplains are needed, together with a clearer set of
guidelines to help them in their task.
Government plans, by contrast, are to add just 30 this year and next -
a figure Eddouk said was grossly insufficient to allow the chaplains
time to get to know the real radicals and those parroting violent ideas
as a form of protest.
"Either the guy is a real radical, or he's a fake radical," Eddouk
said. "How am I supposed to know? After talking with him for 15
minutes, I can't."
Homegrown Terror Suspects Turned Toward Radicalism in U.S. Prisons
Friday, May 22, 2009
Fox News
By Joseph Abrams
The four men charged with plotting to blow up two New York synagogues
and shoot down military planes converted to Islam while behind bars, a
place terror experts say is a cauldron for Islamic radicalism.
James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen were
said by friends and family to have become Muslims while in prison,
where they began on a path toward terrorist violence that law
enforcement officials say is part of a troubling trend in America.
"Prisons can play a critical role in both triggering and reinforcing
the radicalization process," read a landmark 2007 report from the New
York Police Department, which warned of prisons as a "radicalizing
cauldron."
"The prison's isolated environment, ability to create a 'captive
audience' atmosphere, its absence of day-to-day distractions, and its
large population of disaffected young men, makes it an excellent
breeding ground for radicalization."
Many inmates convert to Islam while incarcerated, but security experts
have signaled an emerging threat from those who embrace "Prison Islam,"
which they say is a twisted version of the religion.
Prison Islam is "the convergence of prison culture and violence into
religious practice," said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland
Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. Often
lacking an imam or other religious leader to instruct them, inmates
will distort Islam for themselves to embrace prison values like
violence and gang loyalty.
And while religious conversion is rehabilitative for the vast majority
of inmates, Cilluffo said, Prison Islam can lead them down a much more
dangerous path. Charismatic leaders can recruit prisoners to their
cause and further swell the ranks of the radicals.
Between 6 and 10 percent of the U.S. prison population practices some
form of Islam, according to varying studies. Some join in good faith,
some join for protection from gangs, some join for the Halal food they
prefer to regular prison fare. It's the ones who become radicalized who
pose a distinct threat, federal officials say.
"These radicalized inmates either feel discriminated against in the
United States or feel that the United States oppresses minorities and
Muslims overseas," Donald Van Duyn, now chief intelligence officer for
the FBI, said in testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland
Security in 2006.
Related Stories
That seems to be the story of James Cromitie, the apparent ringleader
of the four alleged terrorists from Newburgh, N.Y. According to the
federal complaint filed against them, Cromitie told an FBI informant
that "he was upset about the war" in Afghanistan and "unhappy that many
Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the
United States Military forces."
Cromitie spent time in prison from 2000-2004 and did an earlier stint
in Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, N.Y., where the Muslim
chaplain was Salahudin Muhammad. Muhammad, who Newburgh city officials
say preaches peace from his pulpit, is also the imam of that town's
sole mosque, Masjid al-Ikhlas, which Cromitie is known to have attended
before his arrest Wednesday night.
Muhammad, when interviewed by FOXNews.com, said emphatically that
Muslims are not being radicalized inside the prison, called it a
"sensational" charge meant to sell books.
"Nobody is teaching radicalism in the prisons. People are teaching
prisoners how to get rid of their criminal mentality. That's what's
being taught," he said.
While the FBI has identified some prison chaplains as sources of
radicalization, some prison experts say the problem is that there are
too few imams in the system, which must then contend with the inmates
offering their own malformed teachings on the religion.
A Department of Justice report in 2004 found that there was an average
of one Muslim chaplain for every 900 Muslim inmates in federal prisons,
which it said constituted a "critical shortage." There are 40 imams
serving the New York Department of Corrections, which runs 68 prisons.
"When you've got groups that go underground, that didn't rely on
chaplains, that's when you've got some real trouble," Cilluffo told
FOXNews.com.
One such group of ex-cons was preparing terrorist attacks on Jewish and
government targets around Los Angeles in 2005 when it was disrupted by
local law enforcement. A coordinated yearlong investigation brought
down the cell allegedly planning attacks on the synagogues in New York
this week.
Prison radicals have been most active on the West Coast and in the
Northeast, and security experts say they don't currently pose a threat
that is strong in numbers.
Cilluffo noted that conversion is a positive experience for the vast majority who take up the religion.
But it doesn't take large numbers to pose a substantial threat to America, he said.
"The reality is you don't need many people. One is arguably too much."
FBI to assess threat from radicalized inmates
Associated Press, August 31, 2005
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- The FBI will conduct "threat assessments" of inmates nationwide to determine who may have been converted to a radical ideology and could commit extremist violence upon release.
Randy D. Parsons, acting assistant chief of the FBI's Los Angeles office, gave the directive in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
"The primary goal of these efforts is to assess and disrupt the recruitment and conversion of inmates to radicalized ideologies which advocate violence," Parsons wrote.
FBI officials have been concerned since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that groups with extremist ideologies may be targeting prisoners as prime candidates for conversion.
The agency has worked with prison officials to identify potentially disruptive groups for "some time," according to the letter, dated Friday and obtained Tuesday.
"However, recent investigations have identified a clear need to increase the FBI's focus and commitment in this area," Parsons wrote.
He said the FBI wants to increase its efforts to "identify, report, analyze and disrupt efforts by extremist persons or groups to radicalize, recruit or advocate for the purpose of violence within correctional facilities."
Spokeswomen for the FBI's Los Angeles office and for the FBI in Washington declined to comment on the letter.
Karen Ernst, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Sacramento, confirmed her office is participating in the "threat assessments."
The order comes as an investigation continues into whether a suspected Southern California terror plot originated in a state prison in Folsom, near Sacramento. Three Los Angeles area men, including a parolee from California State Prison, Sacramento, are suspected of plotting attacks on Jewish and National Guard sites.
FBI Director Robert Mueller warned the Senate Intelligence Committee in February that prisons are "fertile ground for extremists."
"The FBI will be going into each institution and assessing each population," said Todd Slosek, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Slosek expects the FBI to examine the department's information on all "disruptive groups," including prison gangs and militant Islamic organizations.
That shouldn't interfere with inmate religious practices, free speech or other rights, Parsons wrote.
Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, said he worries that some inmates are forming radical groups and "putting a veneer on it and calling it Islam."
Authorities said they believe the Southern California plan originated in a shadowy group at the Folsom prison known as Jamiyyat Ul Islam Is Saheeh.
That case arose after Levar Haley Washington, 25, and another man were arrested July 5 by police in suburban Los Angeles for investigation of robbing gas stations.
Counterterrorism officials in California have said they suspect a list found in Washington's Los Angeles apartment contained potential terrorist targets, although he has not been charged with a terrorism-related crime. The list included National Guard recruiting stations, synagogues and the Israeli Consulate.
Authorities believe the attacks were to be carried out this coming Sept. 11.
Washington converted to Islam in the Sacramento-area prison before his parole in November.
My Perfect Man -- Marrying an Inmate Can Work
Commentary, Jes Stewart,
Pacific News Service, Aug 18, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO--Last week, I got married. I married an amazing man who is
educated, intelligent, beautiful, volunteers with kids, is the lead man at his
job and is respected by his peers, co-workers and superiors. He is a
dedicated Muslim committed to living the path of Islam. He respects my
opinion, teaches me, learns from me and has a loving, dedicated family who
supports us completely. He is also in prison.
National media have focused on prison relationships since an ex-prison nurse
staged a violent escape for her incarcerated husband in Tennessee, killing a
guard in the process. On the day of my wedding, in fact, ABC's "20/20" program
was outside the gates of San Quentin State Prison trying to get interviews from
women about "prison love." I avoided them. News reports question the
relationship between inmate George Hyatte and his wife Jennifer. Was she
manipulated by some mastermind criminal? Was she forced into marriage because
her life was empty?
The media have tagged women married to prisoners as "self-deceptive," "bored
with everyday life," having "long-term low self-esteem," "needing an exaggerated
way to rebel," "vulnerable and exploited by sociopaths," and "relatively shy and
introverted." None of these labels apply to my husband or myself.
A year ago I walked through San Quentin's prison gates to attend an inmate-run
program called Real Choice, which focused on teaching young men about life
choices and their consequences. I sat in the chapel and watched the inmates
educate and interact with kids, some of whom I had worked with for the past six
years in my role as an inner-city youth developer.
It was my first time in an adult prison, and it was nothing like I expected. We
sat in classrooms surrounded by inmates, with no correctional officers to be
found. The inmates spent their day schooling these kids, not scaring them. I
watched them all, but one man in particular caught my attention. Yes, he was
fine, but there are plenty of fine men not in prison, so that is not what got
me. About mid-way through the program, this tall, beautiful man with a long
goatee stood up and demanded our attention with his words. Our heads spun to see
him as he read his poem.
At the end of the day I approached him, asking if he gave out copies of his
poems. He responded by saying, "Here is my hook-up. If you want them, write me
and I will send you copies." He handed me his CDC inmate number. That was it --
I went home.
After our initial contact through mail our relationship developed into
friendship. And as we learned about each other over the months, love. We talked
about who we were as people, what we believe in, wrote poetry, sent pictures,
talked about our families, normal stuff. Our relationship is unique though. How
many people these days can say they had a strictly intellectual relationship
prior to being married? Or kissed for the first time the day they got engaged?
All of my married friends tell me communication is the key to a successful
marriage. Well, if that is true we should do just fine. It is what our
relationship has been based on from the beginning.
While I spend my day working with kids and supervising nine staff who dedicate
their lives to combating youth violence in San Francisco, my husband spends his
day working from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. for the Prison Industry Authority. Then he
attends college classes four days a week. We spend the weekend together talking,
laughing, eating, playing cards and scrabble and enjoying each other.
I am a 32-year-old, college-educated, street-smart woman. I don't live in a
trailer park or the projects. My life was plenty exciting before I met my
husband. I'm not having an affair, not old enough to be having a mid-life crisis
and I am no more of a rebel now than I have been my entire life. Also, I
personally believe my husband should have gone to prison for his crime. He is
not innocent, and it is not my life's work to get him cleared. He will tell you
that prison probably saved his life. Not because of the California Department of
Corrections, but because of a path he chose once incarcerated. Is he the same
person he was 14 years ago at the age of 17? No. But he is accountable for his
actions. He has been paying for them for the last 5,007 days.
He is a rare man. I have to believe that -- he is my husband. I can't believe
that men who have been in prison are throwaway men, unworthy of love or
attention. They are the parents of the children I see everyday, and I count on
them to come home and be real fathers.
I don't know when my husband will come home. We talk about our life together in
the abstract, because the parole board is unpredictable. I work on his parole
from the outside and he works on it from the inside. We want financial security,
a family, a house, maybe a dog. That man behind the walls of San Quentin Prison
is My Perfect, and it really isn't about anyone else.
PNS contributor Jes Stewart is a youth developer and violence prevention
coordinator in San Francisco.
JUST KEEP THE BEAST BEHIND BARS - SILLY WHITE WOMEN!
Gang member jailed over mosque pistol
A MUSLIM gang member who was caught outside a mosque with a loaded pistol has been jailed for eight years.
Marcus Archer, 24, handed the gun to a friend when he went in to pray at the Croydon Mosque and Islamic Centre on the London Road, Thornton Heath, and was arrested by armed police when he came outside.
Archer, a member of the socalled "Muslim Boys" gang, was being followed after he was accused of having a member of a rival gang, dubbed the "Peel Dem Crew", murdered.
Appearing at the Old Bailey on September 9, both he and two other men were cleared of conspiracy to murder.
But Archer, of Croxted Road, Dulwich, admitted possession of a firearm with intent and possession of ammunition without a certificate.
His conviction comes as police say gang violence in areas of south London, including Brixton and Lambeth, is rising.
Leaders at the Croydon Mosque say they are keen to avoid trouble spreading to the borough and are warning people not to follow groups who use religion to justify violence.
Speaking after the trial, Tanveer Sajjid, from the management committee at Croydon Mosque, said: "People who are dedicated to Islam and who understand the religion would not do that.
"Islam doesn't teach violence, but some people are using it to give them a justification for what they are doing.
"We have regular talks at the mosque and the centre where we teach people about the dangers that are coming from some individuals. This is something we have always done, but even more so since the bombings in July.
"There was an incident a while ago with a gang going around robbing from the community in the name of Islam.
"We are always on the lookout for people like this, but even when we see a new face we can't stop them from worshipping and we can't start searching everyone as they come in.
"If we have suspicions about someone all we can do is call the police."
Mr Sajjid also said the recent violence had given Islam a bad reputation and encouraged backlash attacks against mosques.
He said: "We have had to change our opening time to close earlier because of security reasons."
At Archer's trial Judge Gerald Gordon told him: "It is perfectly clear from all that I have heard and read that in the world which you have chosen to inhabit guns are commonplace.
"The courts have to do everything they possibly can to prevent young men carrying and using guns."
Archer, who has a deep scar on his right cheek, has previous convictions for possessing an imitation firearm, robbery and assault.
In April 2000 he was jailed for three years after he put an imitation gun to a teenager's face on a bus and pulled the trigger back.
When he was arrested outside the mosque on July 16 last year he was carrying a blank firing pistol which had been converted to fire live ammunition.
L.A.'s thwarted terror spree
By Daniel Pipes
The Jewish High Holidays this year fall in
early October, and that's when a massacre was planned against two Los Angeles
synagogues, as well as other targets, according to an
indictment just handed down against four young Muslim men.
Law enforcement traces the origins of this plot to 1997. That's when Kevin Lamar James, a black inmate at New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento, California, founded Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS, Arabic for "Assembly of Authentic Islam"). JIS promotes the sort of jihadi version of Islam typical of American jails. As the indictment puts it, James, now 29, preached that JIS members have the duty "to target for violent attack any enemies of Islam or 'infidels,' including the United States government and Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel."
James, serving a 10-year prison sentence for an armed robbery in 1996, recruited acolytes among fellow prisoners. Volunteers swore to obey him and not to disclose the existence of JIS. On release from prison, they promised to get directives from him at least every three months, recruit Muslims to JIS, and attack government officials and supporters of Israel.
Levar Haney Washington, 25, allegedly joined the JIS and swore allegiance to James just before his being released from New Folsom in November 2004, having served his six-year sentence for a 1999 assault and robbery. On getting out, Washington immediately began recruiting at his mosque, Jamat-E-Masijidul Islam in the Los Angeles area. "He regarded Osama bin Laden very highly," reports one person whom Washington tried to recruit.
Two men, both 21 years old and without criminal records, did sign up: Hammad Riaz Samana, a lawful Pakistani immigrant and student at Santa Monica College, and Gregory Vernon Patterson, a black convert who had worked at a duty-free shop in Los Angeles International Airport. The three, plus James, now face up to life in prison for conspiring "to levy a war against the Government of the United States through terrorism."
They did so in five ways. They conducted surveillance of U.S. government targets (military recruitment stations and bases), Israeli targets (the Los Angeles consulate and El Al), and Jewish targets (synagogues). The trio monitored the Jewish calendar and, the indictment notes, planned to attack synagogues on Jewish holidays "to maximize the number of casualties."
They acquired an arsenal of weapons. To fund this undertaking, they set off on a crime wave, robbing (or attempting to rob) gas stations eleven times in the five weeks after May 30. They engaged in physical and firearms training. Finally, they tried recruiting other Muslims.
But Patterson dropped a mobile telephone during the course of one gas station robbery, and the police retrieved it. Information from the phone set off an FBI-led investigation that involved more than 25 agencies and 500 investigators. The police staked out Patterson and Washington, arresting them after they robbed a Chevron station on July 5. Washington's apartment turned up bulletproof vests, knives, jihad literature, and the addresses of potential targets. Patterson was waiting to acquire an AR-15 assault rifle.
The JIS story prompts some worried observations.
Although Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales lavished praise on "the work of able investigators at all levels of government" in solving this case, law enforcement was as clueless about the JIS gang as was its British counterpart about the 7/7 bombers. If not for the lucky break of a dropped phone, the jihadis probably would have struck. It is extremely disturbing to see law enforcement pat itself on the back for ineptitude.
American prisons are comparable to the banlieues in France, the principal recruiting grounds for a criminal form of Islam. As Frank Gaffney observes, "The alleged New Folsom State plot had better rouse us out of our stupor." Will it? Senate hearings in 2003 on prison jihadism yielded distressingly few results.
The emergence of a primarily African-American Islamist terrorist cell signals a new trend. Native-born Americans have taken part in terrorist operations before, but (again, as in London), this case this marks their first large-scale plot.
Terrorist plans that fail don't make headlines, but they should. This was a near-miss. Home-grown radical Islam has arrived and will do damage.
Even though most Jews resist acknowledging it, the Muslim threat is changing Jewish life in the United States. The golden age of American Jewry is coming to an end
Gangs in Search of
an Ideology
By
Michael Radu
FrontPageMagazine.com
November 14, 2005
Of the Muslim rioting that began in poor suburbs of Paris on October 27, Mohammed Rezzoug, caretaker of the municipal athletics center in Le Blanc-Mesnil says, "It's not a political revolution or a Muslim revolution... There's a lot of rage. Through this burning, they're saying, 'I exist, I'm here.' "[1]
Obviously, Mr. Rezzoug is well integrated in French culture -- or at least in its habit of theorizing ad nauseam over everything. However, things in France are not what they used to be -- hence the shift from Rene Descartes' famous dictum, "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") in the seventeenth century to Mr. Rezzoug's "They burn, therefore they are."
And burn they do. Youth gangs, overwhelmingly French-born and Muslim, have engaged in a nation-wide rampage that by November 8 had burned 5,000 vehicles, a few schools, kindergartens, police stations, shopping malls, and post offices. Police officers have been wounded and an older man beaten to death. Some 800 individuals have been arrested and a curfew locally imposed to stem this anomic wave of gang violence that is spreading all over France -- and beyond. But the riots increasingly and alarmingly suggest that Islamist radicals see criminality as an opportunity for recruitment, while the criminals see Islam as a legitimizer.
There are gangs, and there
are Gangs...
The Independent tells of how in one Paris suburb,
Aulnay- sous-Bois, 20-year-old Abdelkarim, the
caid (leader in Arabic) of the local gang,
boasts of the 2,000 euros he makes on
each car stolen: "You want
prostitutes, DVD players, jewelry? I can get
anything you want." His talk is of poverty,
discrimination, and dreams of his family's Morocco,
but also of his anti-Semitism and hashish habit.
"'Look around you -- there is nothing here. We live four to a
room. Our parents go to work like zombies. But
we have nothing. Even the jobs around
here go to people from elsewhere.
This parking lot is like our living room,' he
said. One of his friends . . . held a mobile phone.
'Come and look,' he gestured, laughing. It was a short film
of a Chechen guerrilla cutting off
the head of a Russian soldier."[2]
If one replaces names like Abdelkarim or Karim with Pablo or Deshawn and Aulnay-sous-Bois with Watts or South Bronx, with a few extraordinary exceptions we have a similar profile: uneducated young men from broken families, deep involvement in criminality, contempt for their parents' low-paying jobs, identification with gangs, resentment of outsiders -- in short, the lost urban youth of the West. When a father from Aulnay-sous-Bois complains, "How am I supposed to inculcate the work ethic in my son, when his friends have Nikes given to them by their drug-dealer fathers?" that should sound very familiar to many parents in urban America.
However, while American gangs like the Hispanic Mara Salvatrucha, the Jamaican Posse, and the Crips or Bloods are racist (anti-white, anti-Hispanic or both, as the case may be), violent, and antisocial, their exclusive goals are money and turf control. That is also true of their French (or British) confreres, but in the latter cases Islamist beliefs play or could soon play a decisive justifying role.
These exceptions, however, are essential if we are to understand the importance of the events taking place in France's cities these past weeks. The most important of those exceptions are the gangs' religious identity and the elite's cultural attitudes. The criminally dysfunctional youths of la banlieue are made more potent because they operate in an increasingly dysfunctional society, which in the United States may be local but in France is national. And, as a British observer put it, "Mexicans are not Moroccans (think religion). . . . Nor are the fires of disintegration already burning, as they are in [Interior Minister Nicolas] Sarkozy's France."[3]
Abdelkarim says "From my window I can see the Eiffel Tower . . . . But Paris is another world. This is Baghdad." He exaggerates (so far), but should be taken seriously. Especially when Jean-Louis Debre, the Speaker of the National Assembly and mayor of Evreux, seems to agree, calling the unrest "a true episode of urban guerrilla."[4] Meanwhile, the police union chimed in with its own alarmism: "Nothing seems to be able to stop the civil war that spreads a bit more every day across the whole country," it said, advocating the intervention of the army.[5]
The "Evil Minister"
Naturally enough, for the hoods in the
banlieues, "Ever since Sarko came into the government, life has been s--t,"
said Abdelkarim's friend Kamel, age 16. "He treats us like dogs. Well, we'll
show him how dogs can react." On this point, he and the outspoken minister,
who talks of "cleaning out" the racaille (riff-raff), are speaking the
same language. The latter sees the riots as a clear attempt by the gang
leaders to keep control, which he is determined to regain. The problem is
that the false sense of victimhood felt by the gangsters is shared by many more
Muslims. Thus, Murad, a Moslem leader in Aulnay, says "Islam has been
insulted [by a tear gas canister which landed in front of a mosque] and
nobody has yet asked forgiveness. . . . If
there would have been a tear gas canister in a church or synagogue, Sarkozy
would have gone there to apologize."[6] (Never mind that on November 7 a
church in Lens was firebombed and no Muslim apologies were forthcoming.)
Worse still, the leftist opposition -- socialists, Greens, communists, human rights activists, and most of the intellectual elites also agree with Kamel, that the problem is not the gangs of arsonists but "the system": law and order, the police and, especially, Sarkozy.
Le Monde writes, "To the provocations of Nicolas Sarkozy answers the stupidity of teenagers, who ruin the fragile economic tissue and burn the buses borrowed by their families. Some of the arsonists were victims of a system, before becoming small mafiosos taking advantage of the situation."[7] So, the mayhem was an "answer" to the Interior Minister's calling the criminals "criminals and hooligans"? Criminality becomes "stupidity" and criminals become "victims." It is precisely this kind of language to which philosopher Jean-Francois Mattei refers below:
The betrayal of the language: when one does not have the courage to face things, one speaks to better obscure them. We apply the usual meaning of words to the violence we know in the urbanized banlieues and elsewhere. In France one does not speak anymore of 'riots' but of 'harassment actions'; not of 'delinquents' but of 'youths'; not of 'drug trafficking' but of 'parallel economy'; not of 'policemen' but of 'provocateurs'; . . . not of 'lawless zones' but of 'sensitive neighborhoods'; not of 'infringement of the right' to work: but of 'movement of legitimate demands.'[8]
Or from the statement of the "anti-racist" MRAP (Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples):
MRAP has compassion for the victims of the riots [but] the words crime or riot are never used. Instead, all is explained through "social, ethnic and territorial 'apartheid,' the refusal to respond to a social fracture expanded by an ethnic one. If police were attacked, it is because there are 'tensions' between this daily victimized population and police. As for law, well, the only thing to do is check the circumstances of the deaths of the two teenagers self-electrocuted [in hiding from the police at a power station, which set off the riots] and of the tear gas canister falling in front of a Clichy mosque. Most importantly, MRAP demands 'total mobilization against racist discrimination' and against "any racist exploitation of these dramas and sufferings generated by violence.[9]
And then there is the communist newspaper L'Humanite:
Nicolas Sarkozy's arrogance evidently has no limits. . . . After having deliberately lit the fuse, he happily surveys the damage, and wants time to think about it. . . . The suburbs are not a special case. The suburbs are France, the France that suffers at work, is unemployed. . . . The future of the French model of social justice -- of all our futures -- lies in the suburbs. That is why Nicolas Sarkozy wants to break them. . . . Rather than endless images of burnt cars, we must give a voice to the suburbs. And we must listen to them![10]
Once again, criminals have nothing to do with it. In fact the banlieues "are France." And it was the Interior Minister's fault for insulting the rioters. As for the leader of the opposition, Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande, he made it clear that he considers "intolerable" Sarkozy's words. His party asked President Jacques Chirac to make "strong gestures" and "apologies" in order to calm the violence.[11]
All of these "analyses" and solutions coming from the French Left -- the very same Left that was in power for most of the past quarter of century--are unconvincing, to say the least. The Left did try to "solve" the Muslim immigrant problem the only way it knows: by spending. Clichy-sous-Bois' mayor, Claude Dilain, a socialist and the vice-president of the French Convention of Municipal Authorities, is said to be "a proactive mayor, setting up free soccer training for local youth, appointing youth leaders as mediators and making sure that the community's waste collection service functions properly. Clichy-sous-Bois is an amalgam of schools, daycare centers, welfare offices, parks and a college that looks like something out of an architecture competition. The community library is currently sponsoring a writing contest themed 'I come from afar, I like my country.'"[12] Result? The current wave of violence started in his very town.
As for the minister, his answer is quite simple: "I ask that we assess correctly the fundamental role of police presence in the suburbs. The police are the Republic's police. They keep order in the republic. If they don't do it, what order will replace them? That of the Mafias or fundamentalists." [13] Obviously, it is the latter.
Enter the Islamists
For many years, in the Paris region, Islamist ideology has tried to take advantage of unemployment and unrest. "It is time to open our eyes."[14] Now, youths crying "God is great" rampage and demand that areas where Muslims form a majority be reorganized on the basis of the millet (religious community) system of the Ottoman Empire, with each millet enjoying the right to organize its life in accordance with its religious beliefs. In parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place, with women obliged to wear the hijab and men to grow beards; alcohol and pork products forbidden; "places of sin" such as cinemas closed down; and local administration seized. The message in the suburbs is that French authorities should keep out.[15] Who will replace them? We have already some clear indications:
Suddenly 'big brothers' -- devout bearded men from the mosques who wear long traditional robes -- are positioning themselves between the authorities and the rioters in Clichy-sous-Bois, calling for order in the name of Allah. As thousands of voices shout 'Allahu Akbar' from the windows of high-rise apartment buildings, shivers run down the spines of television viewers in their seemingly safe living rooms.[16]
Those citizens have good reasons to worry indeed. First, in France (as well as in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany) Muslims are wildly over-represented in prisons. In France they make a majority of inmates, and in jails close to the banlieues as much as 80 percent.[17]
Second, Islamist terrorists from France (and Spain, Netherlands, and Belgium) have a profile quite distinct from that of their counterparts in the Muslim world, inasmuch as they contain a far more significant number of (usually petty) criminals. The available data suggest that Islamist criminality in France has a history at least a decade long. Thus, Khaled Khelkal, considered the mastermind of the wave of bombings in France in the mid-1990s, who was shot by police in 1995, became a hero in the banlieues. Born near Lyons to Algerian parents, Khelkhal went to the prestigious La Martiniere lycee in that city but, he claimed, dropped out and engaged in a criminal career because he could not "tolerate being marginal and rejected by the others" -- and because he chose to follow the example of his brother, Nouredine, who was already in jail for armed robbery.[18] More recently, two French-born Algerian and two Tunisian immigrants were arrested in July 2005 for alleged terrorism and links to the main Algerian Islamist terrorist organization, which is part of the Al Qaeda nebula, while also being linked to a prostitution racket.[19]
How many of the hundreds arrested so far will become Islamists once they complete their ridiculously short prison sentences -- usually a few months -- and how that prison time will help them on their path remains to be seen. What is clear is that the mass of present arsonists will vastly reinforce the ranks of Islamists in France and beyond.
Why?
The
reasons for all this are often attributed to
factors like "alienation from both parental roots and
country of origin, and the
society in which they
live."[20] Sociologists call this phenomenon re-Islamization, and it is
increasing in intensity among second and third
generation
Muslims in Western Europe. Those young
Muslims who were born in Europe lost their ties
with the country of their parents, while at the same time
their families suffered the same disintegration as
their native ones, with parents losing
control over their children,
to gangs and/or Islamists. Hence,
such youths are no more Algerians,
Moroccans, or Pakistanis, but neither are they
French or British.
Therefore Islam, however
understood or misunderstood, becomes
the default identity. Indeed,
complaining of high unemployment
and using it as an "explanation" of
Muslim violence and refusal to integrate misses the
point. Leaving aside the obvious fact
that, since they are mostly teenagers and
thus should be in school, not on the job market,
these youths, "French against their will, products of
Arab-African immigration, intend to maintain their cultural
and religious specificities. Far from wanting
to mix and integrate in a scared France which confuses
indulgence with tolerance, they continuously look to
their close origins, due
to modern means of communication,
and refuse to come out from their identity
ghetto."[21]
Second, unemployment is not a result of "discrimination." Hence, when Hugues Lagrange of l'Observatoire sociologique du changement (CNRS) claims that "the main reason for these tendencies [to violence] lies in the unemployment of unskilled youths,"[22] he misses the irony. Could it be that they are unemployed because, instead of staying in schools, they prefer to skip or burn them and thus remain unskilled?
None of this is to say that unemployment, which has been running at 10 percent in recent years for those who actually want to work, is not a major problem in France. It is, and that is the result of France's massive rejection of capitalism. A recent poll shows that 61 percent of professionals, 68 percent of employees, 70 percent of industrial workers, a majority of merchants and artisans, and 60 percent of youths between 18 and 34 years of age oppose it.[23] That and many Muslims' rejection of integration are the two main reasons why it is so hard to be optimistic about any short-term improvement in France's situation -- and indeed Europe's.
Why Europe, and Not France?
The fundamental problems of the French banlieues are far from unique. Romano Prodi, the leader of the Italian leftist opposition, has already stated that similar developments in his country are a matter of when, not if.[24] Nor are the European elites' confusion and inability to leave political correctness behind different from France's. The even more serious problem is the "democratic deficit" within the European Union. Brussels and many national elites show disregard, if not contempt, for the anxieties of the majority, and for reality. A recent EU Commission paper echoes the French Left's approach. As The Guardian reports: "In an attempt to ensure that the vast majority of peaceful Muslims are not portrayed as terrorist sympathizers, the paper says: 'The commission believes there is no such thing as 'Islamic terrorism,' nor 'Catholic', nor 'red' terrorism. . . . The fact that some individuals unscrupulously attempt to justify their crimes in the name of a religion or ideology cannot be allowed in any way . . . to cast a shadow upon such a religion or ideology."[25]
This, after the very same commission identified a "crisis of identity" among young people born to immigrant parents as a key danger. "The document describes radicalization as "a modern kind of dictatorship", likens it to neo-Nazism or nationalism, and says the internet, university campuses, and places of worship are tools of recruitment. It says second-generation immigrants often feel little connection to their parents' country or culture but may also encounter discrimination in European countries.[26] In short, the commission correctly identified the nature of the threat -- Islamist terrorism -- but lacked the courage to name it. How very Brussels!
France has long been seen, and still sees itself, as a model for Europe. The present developments may well prove that Francophiles are right, but not for the reasons they usually have in mind. Geography, size, and its number of Muslims all make France a pivotal element in what amounts to a cultural conflict of continental dimensions. Following the Madrid bombings of 3/11/04 and the London bombings of 7/11/05, the riots in France force the old continent to realize that there is a "Muslim problem" related to, but not just, the Islamist terrorist problem. So far, only hesitant steps have been taken toward recognition of the former. France, Denmark, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Austria have already witnessed, through the political rise of populist, nationalist parties, what happens when governing elite denial of the problem persists. In democracies, someone will always offer a solution when the public demands one. The present spectacle in France is not encouraging.
Notes:
[1] Molly Moore, "Rage of French Youth Is a Fight for Recognition: Spreading Rampage in Country's Slums Is Rooted in Alienation and Abiding Government Neglect," Washington Post, Nov. 6, 2005.
[2] Hugh Schofield, "La Haine: Schools, synagogues and hundreds of cars burn. It's Paris 2005," The Independent, Nov. 6, 2005
[3] Niall Ferguson, "You shouldn't have to burn cars to get a better life - ask my Bolivian cleaning lady," The Telegraph, Nov. 6, 2005.
[4] "Les violences urbaines gagnent du terrain, 1300 vehicules incendies," Le Point http://www.lepoint.fr/static/afp/francais/journal/une/051106191936.ore1nwav.htm
[5] www.telegraph.co.uk, Nov. 7, 2005.
[6] C. G., "L'islam ne joue pas un role determinant dans la propagation des troubles," Le Figaro, Nov. 5, 2005.
[7] " Modestie et ambition, " Le Monde, Nov. 5, 2005.
[8] Jean-Francois Mattei, " Philosopher Violences urbaines, crescendo dans la barbarie, " Le Figaro, Nov. 3, 2005
[9] MRAP, " Violences: une insurrection previsible qui appelle des ruptures, " Nov. 4, 2005, at www.mrap.asso.fr.
[10] Editorial, L'Humanite, Nov. 7, 2005
[11] " Banlieue : le PS interpelle Chirac. Le Parti socialiste a reclame vendredi du president de la Republique des "gestes forts" et des "excuses" afin d'apaiser le climat de violence de ces derniers jours, Reuters/Liberation.Fr, Nov. 4, 2005.
[12] Rudiger Falksohn, Thomas Huetlin, Romain Leick, Alexander Smoltczyk and Gerald Traufetter, "Rioting in France. What's Wrong with Europe?" Der Spiegel, Nov. 7, 2005, at www.Spiegel.de.
[13] Nicolas Sarkozy, Notre strategie est la bonne", Le Monde, Nov. 5, 2005
[14] Ivan Rioufol, " Cites: les non-dits d'une rebellion, " Le Figaro, Nov. 4, 2005.
[15] Amir Taheri, "Why Paris is burning," New York Post, Nov. 5, 2005.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Farhad Khosrokhavar, L'Islam dans le prisons (Balland, Paris 2004), p.11
[18] Jean-Marie Pontaut and Khaled Kelkal, " Itineraire d'un terroriste, " L'Express, Sept. 26, 1996.
[19] Colette Thomas, La France sur le qui-vive, Sept. 26, 2005, at www.rfi.fr.
[20] Stephen Castle, "Europe speeds up plan to clamp down on suspects," Belfast Telegraph, July 14, 2005.
[21] Jacques Myard, " Assez d'angelisme, adaptons nos methodes repressives sans mollir, " Le Figaro, Nov. 4, 2005.
[22] Cecilia Gabizon, " Emeutes : des meneurs au profil de recidivistes, " Le Figaro, Nov. 5, 2005.
[23] Herve Nathan, " Le capitalisme n'a pas la cote chez les Francais, " Liberation, Nov. 4, 2005.
[24] Prodi: "Qui le periferie peggiori d'Europa" Per il leader dell'Unione "non siamo diversi da Parigi, e solo questione di tempo". Le soluzioni: edilizia e protezione sociale , Corriere dela Sera, Nov. 11, 2005, at www.corriere.it.
[25] Nicholas Watt and Leo Cendrowicz, "Brussels calls for media code to avoid aiding terrorists," The Guardian , Sept. 21, 2005.
[26] Stephen Castle, "Europe speeds up plan to clamp down on suspects," Belfast Telegraph, July 14, 2005.
Prison's violent gang culture exposed in leaked report
Publisher: Jon Land
Published: 30/01/2006
The violent gang culture inside one of Britain's toughest prisons was exposed in a leaked report today.
South London street gang the Muslim Boys, which forces its enemies and others to convert to Islam, is operating freely inside Belmarsh jail in south-east London.
The Daily Mirror revealed that a monthly security report at the high-security jail highlighted "abuse, assaults, intimidation and threats" by gang members.
"Most of the perpetrators are believed to be members of the Muslim Boys gang who intensified their drive to recruit other prisoners to the fold," said the report.
"They force prisoners to accept the Muslim faith - those who refuse suffer assaults.
"Some of the atrocities were carried out with impunity during associations, causing victims to fear for their lives."
It added: "They promise potential converts protection from other prisoners and staff who they challenge at every opportunity."
In September last year, three members of the Muslim Boys were cleared of conspiracy to murder 20-year-old Adrian Marriott after the prosecution offered no evidence at the Old Bailey.
At an inquest earlier this month into Mr Marriott's killing, his mother Ruth described hearing her son shot dead after he refused to convert to Islam.
"We heard gunfire. Adrian was told he would be killed if he did not become a Muslim," she told the Southwark Coroner.
Mr Marriott, an accountancy student and member of rival gang the Peelden Crew, was killed in a park near his home in Brixton, south London, in June 2004.
The Muslim Boys, also known as PDC or Poverty Driven Children, specialise in robbing drug dealers and members have claimed they pray before and after committing crimes.
Some gang members have made unsubstantiated claims about links with al Qaida.
Police and community leaders believe that their Muslim identity has been adopted solely to strike fear into their victims, and to get better food while in prison, rather than from religious conviction.
Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers has reported similar incidents of Muslim gang culture at Feltham young offenders' institution in west London.
She said in a report published in November that she was concerned by the level of intimidation faced by inmates, adding that "bullying was related to gangs and faith allegiances".
Ms Owers added: "There was ongoing concern among some staff that a small minority of young people were being coerced into joining the Muslim faith."
A Prison Service spokeswoman said: "We do not comment on leaked documents.
"Across the estate, it is standard practice to regularly monitor and analyse the security situation within any establishment so that any issues can be identified early on and addressed as quickly as possible.
"Each prison has in place an anti-bullying strategy tailored to the specific needs of the prison with a range of tools available.
"The measures used will be a proportionate response to the threats posed to good order but may include closer monitoring of particular prisoners, moving prisoners to different houseblocks or to the high security unit, or even moving prisoners to different establishments."
She added: "Prison governors are aware of the risks of radicalisation and carefully monitor their establishments to ensure any signs of radicalisation are assessed and challenged vigorously through the chaplaincy.
"The Prison Service works closely with other government agencies to combat radicalism and is currently evaluating a number of initiatives involving the interaction between prison establishments and the local Muslim communities which they serve."
Radical Islam and the French Muslim Prison Population
By
Pascale Combelles Siegel
The Jamestown Foundation
Volume 4, Issue 15 (July
27, 2006)
In the mid-1990s, after an unprecedented
campaign of terrorist attacks in Paris, the French government dismantled several
Algerian GIA-backed terrorist cells and sentenced both operatives and financiers
of the attacks to lengthy prison terms. A new wave of convicts followed suit
after the dismantling of another terrorist cell before the 1998 World Cup. Yet
these anti-terrorism successes created a different set of problems as radical
Islamists began proselytizing their views to fellow inmates and recruiting new
followers in prisons. Pascal Maihlos, the director of France's domestic
intelligence agency, Renseignements Généraux (RG), put it plainly in an
interview with Le Monde earlier this year: "It is there, in prison, that a
minority of radical Islamist terrorists (about 100) hook up with petty criminals
who find their way back to religion under its most radical form" (Top Chrétien,
November 25, 2005).
Maihlos is referring to the new dangers posed by the proselytism of some radical
Islamist activists inside French prisons. In its seminal 2005 study of
proselytism in prisons, the RG counted 175 acts of proselytism in 68 prisons
(out of 188 prisons across the country). The 68 prisons in question are
generally larger prisons located in urban areas. According to Maihlos and the RG,
the most severe acts of proselytism include spontaneous calls for collective
prayers (30% of all incidents) and pressures on fellow prisoners to follow
certain religious-oriented rules (20% of all recorded incidents) (Top Chrétien,
January 14). Other acts of proselytism include special requests, such as
requests for prayer carpets, halal meat (meat killed and processed according to
religious principles) and suitable places for worship; there are also calls for
allowing the traditional Islamic dress code (instead of prison garments) and a
few incidents of degrading Christian symbols such as Bibles and Christmas trees.
The progression of proselytism appears to be linked to the rise of Salafism, a
brand of Islam that preaches a strict observance of 7th century rules and a
strong rejection of Western values. Even though the Tablighi movement—which is
hostile to violence—remains the dominant Islamic movement in French prisons, an
unnamed RG official told Le Figaro on January 13 that "we observe a steady
increase of Salafism, with two particularities: a strong rejection of Western
values and the legitimacy of violence" to achieve their goals. As a result, the
Salafism brand of Islam is now found in jails all across France except for four
regions (out of 22), and its influence continues to grow. The four regions that
are not experiencing this trend are located in rural areas (Top Chrétien,
November 25, 2005).
In the short term, the threat is considered serious because a number of those
imprisoned for acts of terrorism in the mid-1990s have been (or will soon be)
released from prison [1]. The fear is that once out of prison, they will
reconstitute new networks with the assistance of former inmates. According to
Maihlos, "Of course, the release of such individuals is a top priority for all
intelligence services [involved in counter-terrorism]" (Top Chrétien, November
25, 2005). Such fears are not just theoretical. In September 2005, the French
counter-terrorism agency, Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST),
dismantled Safé Bourada's terrorist cell in Trappes (near Paris). Safé Bourada,
an Algerian, had been incarcerated for almost 10 years for his participation in
the 1995 attacks on the Paris metro system. He stands accused of having
reconstituted a terrorist network with delinquents he had met in prison. Bourada
is now back behind bars.
Additionally, according to the RG, another network headed by a man named Cherifi
was also created in prison and dismantled in 2005. A month later, in October
2005, the conservative daily Le Figaro announced that a prison guard in Bourges
(Central France) was under investigation for radical proselytism. In 2003, both
the RG and local prison officials realized that he "was involved in [radical
Islamist] proselytism inside and outside the prison. Police sources indicated
that he had encouraged youth to join the jihad in Iraq and elsewhere" (Le
Figaro, November 30, 2005). Six other people were subsequently arrested and
placed under investigation.
While the risk is certainly real, as attested by last year's incidents, it also
appears to be quantitatively limited for the time being. Out of the nearly
60,000 prisoners in French prisons, only 99 are being held on terrorism-related
charges [2]. Of these, the RG estimates that 30 of the 90 are heavily engaged in
radical Islamist proselytism. The RG considers them particularly dangerous
because their previous "terrorist" experiences make them capable of leadership.
The RG is also concerned with 20 isolated cases of new converts who are now
actively engaged in proselytism; these 20 have been identified as being at risk
of becoming overzealous in their actions in order to "prove" their sincerity to
their newfound religion. Of these 175 acts of proselytism, the RG considers
"that half-a-dozen, based on their past behaviors, could cross the red line into
terrorism" (Le Figaro, January 13). This calculation validates prison officials
who consider that "proselytism does not necessarily lead to terrorism" (Le
Monde, February 4). A prison guard at Osny (a Paris suburb) declared to Le Monde
on February 4: "These guys [proselytizing radicals] can exert great influence
and have a courtship of 50 around them. Some arrive in prison with nothing, and
within a week their cells are replete with gifts from fellow inmates. When the
ring leaders are transferred to another prison, however, it all quickly
disappears. Their influence is not that deep."
In the long run, two factors may decisively impact the threat that seasoned
terrorists recruit common criminals into new terrorist networks.
First, if Islam is the religion of a large majority of French inmates, the
prison system has only very recently decided to accommodate the practice of a
moderate brand of Islam. In the first ever sociological study of Islam in French
prisons, Farhad Khosrokhavar (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales),
estimated that between 50% and 80% of French inmates are Muslims [3]. That
number must be contrasted with France's overall Muslim population, which is
7-8%. Despite these numbers, the author found the almost "complete absence of
institutional response" on the part of the authorities to accommodate Muslims (casafree.com,
May 7). For example, Khosrokhavar notes that there are only 69 imams in French
prisons (compared to 500 Christian ministers and 84 rabbis) to tend to the
religious needs of tens of thousands of Muslim inmates. By comparison, at the
time of the study, there were two imams tending to only 20 Shiite prisoners in
the British prison system. Khosrokhavar also criticizes the strict security
rules and a strict application of the principles of secularism that overly
constrict the practice of Islam. For example, in many prisons, according to
Khosrokhavar, collective prayers are forbidden; women cannot come to the
prisoner visiting rooms veiled; hallal meat may only be available for an
additional fee; and prisoners encounter difficulties in observing the Ramadan
[4]. According to Khosrokhavar, "inmates view these rules as manifestations of
disdain toward them" and therefore turn toward a practice of "wild Islam" (un
islam ensauvagé). "Prison administration leaves inmates to their own devices and
to the hands of self-proclaimed, semi-clandestine radical leaders," he said. "As
a result, the door is open for dangerous interpretations of Islam where
rejections of others [non-Muslims], hatred of the West and jihad are the
dominant elements" (casafree.com, May 7).
After the RG report of 2005 on the extent and dangers of radical proselytism in
prisons, the French Ministry of Justice initiated a number of reforms to allow
for a better practice of a moderate Islam. The cornerstone of the project is the
recruitment of more imams to serve the Muslim prison population in conjunction
with the Conseil Français du Culte Musulman (a representative organization of
French Muslims headed by Dalil Boubakeur). The project is only in its initial
stages and only time will tell how successful it is.
The second dimension of the problem lies in the socio-economic profile of Muslim
prisoners. Some of these prisoners—young, male, poor and brutally cut off from
all familial support (after they land in jail)—may become easy prey for the
radicals' recruitment machine. The statistics gathered by Khosrokhavar are quite
telling. In his book, he estimates that the overwhelming majority of Muslim
convicts are males between 20 and 30 years-old and who belong to the underclass.
At the time of their arrest, two-thirds of the prisoners were unemployed. Those
who were employed were mostly laborers. Only 10% were professionals, making this
group more capable of tapping into the large pool of disenfranchised and poor
youth to proselytize a radical and violent version of Islam and recruit them for
terrorist networks. The risk is that a violent, confrontational version of Islam
finds resonance in a population alienated from mainstream values and progress.
If the French government fails to take effective measures to promote the
practice of a moderate form of Islam in prisons, it runs the risk of breeding a
new generation of terrorists.
Notes
1. This was the case of some of the terrorists who had provided financial and
logistical support to the 1995-1996 attacks in the Paris metro as well as some
of those indicted in the terrorist (failed) plot against the World Cup
organization in 1998.
2. This number accounts for both convicts and suspects awaiting trial.
3. The numbers are imprecise because the French government does not ask for the
religious affiliation of convicts. This is part of the French concept of
"neutrality" toward people's origins. The figures are based on the author's
educated estimates.
4. Farhad Khosrokhavar, L'Islam dans les prisons, Paris, Balland, 2004.