It seems that Britain’s least favourite mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya artist Fiyaz Mughal is back in the news again. Mughal is said to have praised the UK Islamic prison chaplaincy service several years ago even though UK Islamic prison chaplains are either linked to the growth of Islamic extremism or belong to extremist groups. Fiyaz Mughal, for those who don’t know is the creator of a plethora of front organisations that either promote Islam, claim that Islam is compatible with civilised societies, or promotes the false idea that Muslims are victims of a ‘massive level of Islamophobia’ ‘Faith Matters’, ‘Religious Reader’ and the discredited Islamophobia monitor ‘Tell Mama’ are just three of the vehicles that Fiyaz Mughal uses to either promote Islam or promote the false idea that Islam is a religion of peace.
According to a website called Middle East Eye which is quoting British newspapers such as the Sunday Times, many of the Imams who are acting as chaplains in UK prisons are followers of the Deobandi sect of Islam which is known for its hostility to Western values. However this didn’t stop Fiyaz Mughal’s Faith Matters vehicle in 2010 calling the Islamic chaplaincy system ‘a trailblazing service’ that had been emulated widely and a model of ‘best practice’.
Here’s what Middle East Eye has said about the worrying and growing problem of Islamic extremism in British prisons. As is usual policy for this blog the original text is in italics whereas my comments are in plain text.
Middle East Eye said:
The head of the UK prison service has rejected speculation that a top Muslim adviser stands to lose his job for recruiting chaplains from the conservative Deobandi denomination as a result of a forthcoming government report into extremism in jails.
Writing to senior prison officials this week, Michael Spurr, the head of the National Management Offenders Service (NOMS), also criticised media reports quoting anonymous government sources suggesting that Deobandi chaplains held views that were “contrary to British values and human rights”.
Spurr highlighted a particular article published by the Sunday Times newspaper on 6 March which said that Ahtsham Ali, NOMS’s Muslim adviser responsible for selecting imams in the prison service, was under scrutiny because 70 percent of chaplains were from Deobandi backgrounds.
“This is inaccurate, misleading and disgraceful coverage,” Spurr wrote in the letter dated Monday seen by Middle East Eye.
Spurr said it was “hardly surprising” that a majority of Muslim chaplains were Deobandis because a majority of Muslims, mosques and seminaries in the UK were linked to the Deobandi tradition, which originated in southeast Asia in the 19th century.
He also said it did not follow that to be a Deobandi was to reject British values, citing a report by school inspectors in which a major Deobandi seminary was commended for promoting respect and tolerance of other faiths and cultures and striving to produce “exemplary British citizens”.
“Our Chaplaincy teams cater for a diverse prisoner congregation, and are enriched by their diverse denominational backgrounds,” he wrote.
I don’t know about you but I find myself getting more and more angry at Michael Spurr and his blatant appeasement of extreme Islam. He should not have rejected speculation that there should be a clear-out of the Islamic prison chaplaincy system and should said something along the lines of ‘we’ll look into it and take action if needed’. He should not have gone out on a limb and defended a Muslim advisor who has presided over a situation where 70% of the prison Imams come from one highly questionable sect. I weep for our public sector when I see someone of Mr Spurr’s position making excuses for Deobandi Islam. It’s disgusting it really is.
If the Islamic population of Britain’s prisons is as theologically diverse as Spurr says it is then why are so many of the prison chaplains from the Deobandi tradition? If a prison population had a large number of Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Wee Frees etc in it then it would be highly inappropriate to have the majority of Chaplains following an Anglican path. Something really smells bad about this case and it the problems well turn out to be much worse than these initial reports say they are. It’s obvious to me that there has been significant Deobandi infiltration of the prison chaplain system and that it is imperitive that this problem is dealt with. However, I do not trust obvious appeasers of Islam like Michael Spurr to do this very necessary job effectively. Rooting out extremist imams in prisons is not a job that should be left to appeasers or Quislings.
To move on to the subject of Britain’s best known mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artist Fiyaz Mughal. It appears that Mughal has gushed copiously about the wonders of Britain’s prison chaplaincy system despite it being riddled with extremists. The Middle East Eye quoted Fiyaz Mughal’s comments on the prison chaplaincy system that he made with his ‘Faith Matters’ that on back in 2010.
Middle East Eye continued:
The number of Muslim prisoners in British jails has increased by about three times since the 1990s, with about 200 Muslim chaplains currently working full-time in the prison system.
This sort of figure shows that Britain has a serious problem with Muslim criminality.
More than 12,000 Muslim inmates make up about 14 percent of the total prison population, compared with less than five percent of the overall population in England and Wales, according to Ministry of Justice figures published last year.
More evidence that those who follow Islam are more likely to be criminal. The question this brings up is are the Islamic chaplains doing anything to help prevent this in the future or are they merely relishing the prospect of a captive audience for their own extremist views?
A report by the interfaith organisation Faith Matters in 2010 described the Muslim prison chaplaincy system as a “best practice model” that had “notably improved” services for Muslim prisoners since its introduction in 2003.
How can the Islamic chaplaincy service realistically be described as ‘a best practice model’ when there are worries that Islamic chaplains are doing the square root of sod all to discourage extremism and indeed are more than likely members of groups that are hostile to our values?
Fiyaz Mughal, Faith Matters’ director, told MEE that the Muslim chaplaincy system in prisons had been a “trail-blazing” service that had been emulated in other sectors, such as healthcare and education.
I wouldn’t boast about NHS Islamic chaplain’s if I was you. One of them turned out to be a war criminal from the Bangladesh war in the 1970’s. Is it best practice I wonder to have a mass murderer as an Islamic chaplain?
“If you start to untangle the basis of chaplaincy in the prison service then you are going to have to rip out the wiring in other sectors as well,” he said.
Good. Maybe it should be done then? If the Islamic chaplaincy service in both the prison service and the NHS is so riddled with extremists then shut it down.
“You are talking about a system that has been heavily implemented and invested in and that is actually helping the most vulnerable and the angriest prisoners.
I don’t really care as much for the welfare of these allegedly ‘vulnerable’ and ‘angriest’ Islamic prisoners as I do for those who either have been their victims or are likely to be their victims. This looks very much like a veiled threat to me. A statement that if this flawed system is not continued then we will have violent Muslims kicking off left, right and centre. I’m reminded very much of a protection racket threat ‘nice prison service you’ve got there, be a shame if it got damaged wouldn’t it?’
“In many instances it has been a bulwark providing resilience to prisoners. This is a system that actually works because you are looking eyeball to eyeball at the perpetrator and you are saying, ‘Look, I am here to support you but also to try to change your behaviour’, and that is fundamental to the whole extremism agenda.”
But what if, other newspaper reports are true and the Imams ministering to the prisoners are themselves extremist nutjobs? How is that going to to direct prisoners away from extremism? The answer is it cannot.
Fiyaz Mughal has seriously shot himself in the foot here. He has been caught out defending the indefensible. He is advocating for the very same problematical Islamic chaplains who are currently in place. We need to ask ourselves how is that helping community cohesion or diverting Muslims from terror and extremism?
The Islamic chaplaincy system in the UK is rotten to the core and I’m not surprised to see someone of the calibre of Fiyaz Mughal defending this rotten system and those who work within it and who exploit it for their own twisted ends.
Without doubt Britain has a problem with Islamist entryism, infiltration and exploitation in our public services, these recent reports on the Prison Service make that quite plain. However we also have a problem with people like Fiyaz Mughal and his many front groups who make outrageous excuses for these extremists and who tell the rest of us to stop worrying as there’s nothing wrong. There’s everything wrong with the Islamic chaplaincy service and not just the one in the Prison Service and it is dishonest in the extreme to claim otherwise.
Links
Middle East Eye article
Daily Mail on the problem of extreme Imams in British prisons
The murderer who became an NHS Islamic chaplain
