Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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TERNI, Italy: Italy’s plan to reduce the risk of an extremist-inspired attack is pinned in small part on El-Hacmi Mimoun, an imam who bikes to the prison here every week and exhorts Muslim inmates not to stray from life’s “right path” or hate people who are not Muslim.
Seven inmates — three Moroccans, three Tunisians and a Somali — left their cells at Terni Penitentiary on an early summer day to listen, as the Moroccan-born imam led prayers and delivered a sermon. Sunlight from a high-barred window streamed through Mimoun’s gauzy, off-white robe.
“If I am praying, I am not cooking up ideas to harm others on the outside,” a 35-year-old Tunisian inmate said, sitting cross-legged in the small, beige-tiled room that was converted into the prison’s Mosque of Peace.
None of the inmates would give their names, and prison rules precluded asking why they were serving time.
So far spared the attacks that have stunned France, Belgium, Britain and Germany, Italy has relied mostly on arresting and deporting suspected extremists to try to keep the country safe. But the Italian government has come to embrace prevention, too, especially in the prisons it does not want to become training grounds for potential extremists.
Inviting in imams who have been vetted to make sure they espouse “moderate views” is a tactic now being employed in Italian prisons to counter radicalization among inmates. In February, the government signed a recruiting agreement with the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy (UCOII), which professes to foster Islamic “pluralism.”
Italy uses imams in prisons to deter extremism among inmates
That is an interesting approach.
Seven inmates — three Moroccans, three Tunisians and a Somali — left their cells at Terni Penitentiary on an early summer day to listen, as the Moroccan-born imam led prayers and delivered a sermon. Sunlight from a high-barred window streamed through Mimoun’s gauzy, off-white robe.
“If I am praying, I am not cooking up ideas to harm others on the outside,” a 35-year-old Tunisian inmate said, sitting cross-legged in the small, beige-tiled room that was converted into the prison’s Mosque of Peace.
None of the inmates would give their names, and prison rules precluded asking why they were serving time.
So far spared the attacks that have stunned France, Belgium, Britain and Germany, Italy has relied mostly on arresting and deporting suspected extremists to try to keep the country safe. But the Italian government has come to embrace prevention, too, especially in the prisons it does not want to become training grounds for potential extremists.
Inviting in imams who have been vetted to make sure they espouse “moderate views” is a tactic now being employed in Italian prisons to counter radicalization among inmates. In February, the government signed a recruiting agreement with the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy (UCOII), which professes to foster Islamic “pluralism.”
Italy uses imams in prisons to deter extremism among inmates
That is an interesting approach.
