Religious conviction
"In the Southern Tablelands, in the country's most secure jail, violent men with little to do and nothing to lose are turning to the Koran. Muhammad has come to monsters who may never go to a mosque. All are jailed under A1 security classifications - one below the AA rung reserved for terrorists. Housed in the High Risk Management Unit, or Super Max, at Goulburn jail, each has abandoned any notion of the Dreamtime when, spiritual Aborigines believe, the patterns and cycles of life were set.
Fernando, Priestly, Paulson and Buchanan have converted to Islam. In Super Max they bow to a fellow killer: an international fugitive, associate of terrorists and makeshift imam, Bassam Hamzy. Each has shaved his head, grown a beard, and prays to Allah loudly enough for other inmates to complain. Under the ethnic clustering ethos of NSW jails - in which Asians, Arabs and Islanders are separated - Aborigines are generally allowed to mix with other races. Their enemies are often Asian and their closest associations are with the Lebanese. At Super Max their brothers in Islam include the alleged terrorist Faheem Lodhi, triple killer Michael Kanaan, his fellow gang members and killers Rabeeh Mawas and Wassim El-Assaad, killer Mohamed Rustom and pack rapist Bilal Skaf.
About a third of the three dozen inmates in Super Max are Muslim. Kanaan and El-Assaad were criminal gang associates of Saleh Jamal, who has been convicted of subversive activity in Lebanon. The commander of security services in NSW jails, Brian Kelly, recently told Four Corners he had seen evidence of "efforts to convert inmates to Islam for probably the wrong reasons". "We haven't really had evidence for terrorist purposes in itself but when it's for the wrong reason, and when it's targeting violent people, it is a concern," he said.
The Corrective Services Commissioner, Ron Woodham, told Four Corners he was worried about Aboriginal inmates serving long sentences converting to Islam. "Some of these people, ah, convert - in their mind they convert and they convert back," he said. "But we're worried where certain prisoners that are doing very long sentences, as an example, denounce their Aboriginality for Islam. "We monitor them very closely … To us they're not terrorists in the real sense but they talk the talk. So if we had somebody who was recruiting in a prison … we keep them away from people that might be susceptible to the conversion."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hard-men-turn-to-islam-to-cope-with-jail/2005/11/18/1132016989585.html?page=2
"Authorities need to pay much more attention to what is happening in America's prisons. They are ripe recruiting grounds for Al Qaeda -- a fabulous way to recruit home-grown Americans into jihad against their native country.
That's why it's important to keep terrorist suspects and convicts segregated from the domestic prison population (just another good argument for keeping the Guantanamo detention facility open). And it's why America needs to start noting the content of what Islamic faith is being preached to our prison population (for more, read this in The Wall Street Journal -- "How a Muslim Chaplain Spread Extremism to an Inmate Flock: Radical New York Imam Chose Clerics for Prisons" [subscription required])."
From the blog of "Carol Platt Liebau
. . . advocating American political and religious liberty, free enterprise, limited government, military strength and traditional values." http://carolliebau.blogspot.com/2005/08/wave-of-foreboding.html
"Evangelical Christians are moving in a big way into cash-strapped state prisons to supplement and, in some cases, replace existing chaplain services. Their work is supported by private donations and encouraged by the government's emphasis on faith-based social services. Correctional officials say they are grateful for the free or low-cost help. But many people challenge the fairness and legality of giving one religious group unusual access to prisoners.
State budget crises are forcing states to search for ways to cut prison costs. Their choices include allowing privately sponsored evangelical prison ministries to replace chaplains at lower costs or for free, dropping below the national standard of one chaplain per 500 prisoners, or replacing the paid chaplains with volunteers. Colorado recently replaced all the chaplains in its state prisons with an evangelical Christian prison ministry that offered services for free. In Texas, lawmakers cut 62 state prison chaplain positions in 2003, a 40 percent reduction. In Georgia, legislators are considering a proposal to replace state-funded chaplains with volunteers.
Evangelical prison ministries say that they are answering Jesus' call to visit the imprisoned and recognizing the power of faith to transform troubled inmates into productive citizens. But critics say evangelicals have a conflict: Their faith tells them to win converts, but the law requires prisons - and those who work there - to respect and even encourage the inmates' own religious beliefs, whatever they are. Some inmates, professional chaplains and non-Christian religious leaders accuse evangelical Christians of barring prisoner access to non-evangelical ministers and of forcing inmates to endure evangelizing. Some prison programs grant special privileges for those who profess Christian beliefs."
http://www.religionlink.org/tip_040105c.php
"Ramadan challenges inmates, prisons as Islam spreads"
http://www.religionlink.org/tip_031009bzones.php
"Pollsmoor Prison is the largest prison in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. It is not just one prison but five on one huge site housing some 8,000 inmates and employing over 1,000 staff. It's claim to fame is that it held Nelson Mandela in the years before his release and subsequent election as President. A large number of the prisoners are awaiting trial and a huge amount of the crime is drug/gang-related. The spiritual hunger in the prison is palpable from the first moment that you step inside - and indeed is the reason why Vic was so attracted to getting involved at the prison.
Transformation Pollsmoor represents a group of mainly full-time Christian workers at Pollsmoor Prison who are passionate about spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to a prison population who have often grown up not just with material and emotional poverty but, worst of all, suffer from severe spiritual malnourishment. Most of our work is concentrated in the Medium A Juvenile Prison which houses 2,000 youngsters between the ages of 18 and 21, three-quarters of whom are awaiting trial. Every day we are seeing God's Word change lives through the power of the Holy Spirit through a mixture of daily devotions, Bible studies, special programmes and one-to-one counselling. We have seen hardened gangsters and murderers tranformed into kind-hearted and loving disciples of Jesus, excited and inspired to go and share what they have discovered with other prisoners. It can be difficult to imagine them doing the crimes for which they were imprisoned, so complete is God's transformation!
There are not many full-time Christian workers from outside compared to the number of inmates, but we see that God is raising up evangelists and teachers from within. The prison authorities have been very supportive in helping us to create rooms (cells of up to 60 prisoners) which can be used solely to house and disciple Christian converts as well as allowing us to take inmates with us around the prison to act as peer-group evangelists."
http://www.hopenow.org.uk/p_pollsmoor.html
"Michelle Leslie refutes claims that wearing a Muslim headscarf during her trial was a stunt. Federation of Islamic Councils president Ameer Ali today said that if Leslie resumed work as an underwear model, she must admit that her claim that she had converted to Islam almost two years ago was a stunt. "If she wants to be a Muslim, she has to be very modest in her dress sense, modest in her language, modest in the way that she looks - everything."
Leslie, who, during her trial, teamed a Muslim headdress with modest clothing, drew anger at the weekend when she left Indonesia wearing skin tight jeans and a singlet top that showed part of her midriff. Today, Leslie family spokesman Sean Mulcahy said the model meant no disrespect by her outfit. He said she continued to follow her own version of Islam. "She is Muslim, she didn't wear anything yesterday to be disrespectful to anyone," Mr Mulcahy said. "She was a Muslim when she was doing catwalk stuff, so I don't think the fact that she did wear a hijab at times ... conflicts with her belief. "She has her own firm belief of her religion and she practises it as she sees fit."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/leslie-denies-muslim-stunt/2005/11/21/1132421573377.html
" A job recently became available for someone willing and able to teach construction skills to inmates at the Bradford County Correctional Facility in northeastern Pennsylvania. Applicants had to be general contractors familiar with the ins and outs of the building trade, such as estimating jobs and procuring supplies; they also had to be capable of supervising a crew of up to 10 men.
There was one more requirement: Anyone interested in the job had to be a Christian willing to share his or her faith if the opportunity to save a soul arose. Leading workers in prayer would also be an important part of the job. How did a religious requirement like that get affixed to a job funded with taxpayer dollars? Blame it on President George W. Bush.
Since Bush unveiled his “faith-based” initiative shortly after taking office in 2001, federal agencies, as well as state and local governments, have been prodded to dole out tax funds to religious organizations. A variety of social-service programs, including programs aimed at substance abusers, young people, elderly Americans and prison inmates and others in need of government aid have been especially targeted.
In Bradford County, a rural enclave with a population of about 62,000, the new faith-based approach translated into a contract diverting a combination of local, state and federal funds to an evangelical Christian group called The Firm Foundation to run vocational programs at the local jail. No other programs are offered. If you’re an inmate and want to learn a marketable skill to turn your life around after release, Firm Foundation is the only game in town."
http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7304&abbr=cs_
Fernando, Priestly, Paulson and Buchanan have converted to Islam. In Super Max they bow to a fellow killer: an international fugitive, associate of terrorists and makeshift imam, Bassam Hamzy. Each has shaved his head, grown a beard, and prays to Allah loudly enough for other inmates to complain. Under the ethnic clustering ethos of NSW jails - in which Asians, Arabs and Islanders are separated - Aborigines are generally allowed to mix with other races. Their enemies are often Asian and their closest associations are with the Lebanese. At Super Max their brothers in Islam include the alleged terrorist Faheem Lodhi, triple killer Michael Kanaan, his fellow gang members and killers Rabeeh Mawas and Wassim El-Assaad, killer Mohamed Rustom and pack rapist Bilal Skaf.
About a third of the three dozen inmates in Super Max are Muslim. Kanaan and El-Assaad were criminal gang associates of Saleh Jamal, who has been convicted of subversive activity in Lebanon. The commander of security services in NSW jails, Brian Kelly, recently told Four Corners he had seen evidence of "efforts to convert inmates to Islam for probably the wrong reasons". "We haven't really had evidence for terrorist purposes in itself but when it's for the wrong reason, and when it's targeting violent people, it is a concern," he said.
The Corrective Services Commissioner, Ron Woodham, told Four Corners he was worried about Aboriginal inmates serving long sentences converting to Islam. "Some of these people, ah, convert - in their mind they convert and they convert back," he said. "But we're worried where certain prisoners that are doing very long sentences, as an example, denounce their Aboriginality for Islam. "We monitor them very closely … To us they're not terrorists in the real sense but they talk the talk. So if we had somebody who was recruiting in a prison … we keep them away from people that might be susceptible to the conversion."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/hard-men-turn-to-islam-to-cope-with-jail/2005/11/18/1132016989585.html?page=2
"Authorities need to pay much more attention to what is happening in America's prisons. They are ripe recruiting grounds for Al Qaeda -- a fabulous way to recruit home-grown Americans into jihad against their native country.
That's why it's important to keep terrorist suspects and convicts segregated from the domestic prison population (just another good argument for keeping the Guantanamo detention facility open). And it's why America needs to start noting the content of what Islamic faith is being preached to our prison population (for more, read this in The Wall Street Journal -- "How a Muslim Chaplain Spread Extremism to an Inmate Flock: Radical New York Imam Chose Clerics for Prisons" [subscription required])."
From the blog of "Carol Platt Liebau
. . . advocating American political and religious liberty, free enterprise, limited government, military strength and traditional values." http://carolliebau.blogspot.com/2005/08/wave-of-foreboding.html
"Evangelical Christians are moving in a big way into cash-strapped state prisons to supplement and, in some cases, replace existing chaplain services. Their work is supported by private donations and encouraged by the government's emphasis on faith-based social services. Correctional officials say they are grateful for the free or low-cost help. But many people challenge the fairness and legality of giving one religious group unusual access to prisoners.
State budget crises are forcing states to search for ways to cut prison costs. Their choices include allowing privately sponsored evangelical prison ministries to replace chaplains at lower costs or for free, dropping below the national standard of one chaplain per 500 prisoners, or replacing the paid chaplains with volunteers. Colorado recently replaced all the chaplains in its state prisons with an evangelical Christian prison ministry that offered services for free. In Texas, lawmakers cut 62 state prison chaplain positions in 2003, a 40 percent reduction. In Georgia, legislators are considering a proposal to replace state-funded chaplains with volunteers.
Evangelical prison ministries say that they are answering Jesus' call to visit the imprisoned and recognizing the power of faith to transform troubled inmates into productive citizens. But critics say evangelicals have a conflict: Their faith tells them to win converts, but the law requires prisons - and those who work there - to respect and even encourage the inmates' own religious beliefs, whatever they are. Some inmates, professional chaplains and non-Christian religious leaders accuse evangelical Christians of barring prisoner access to non-evangelical ministers and of forcing inmates to endure evangelizing. Some prison programs grant special privileges for those who profess Christian beliefs."
http://www.religionlink.org/tip_040105c.php
"Ramadan challenges inmates, prisons as Islam spreads"
http://www.religionlink.org/tip_031009bzones.php
"Pollsmoor Prison is the largest prison in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. It is not just one prison but five on one huge site housing some 8,000 inmates and employing over 1,000 staff. It's claim to fame is that it held Nelson Mandela in the years before his release and subsequent election as President. A large number of the prisoners are awaiting trial and a huge amount of the crime is drug/gang-related. The spiritual hunger in the prison is palpable from the first moment that you step inside - and indeed is the reason why Vic was so attracted to getting involved at the prison.
Transformation Pollsmoor represents a group of mainly full-time Christian workers at Pollsmoor Prison who are passionate about spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to a prison population who have often grown up not just with material and emotional poverty but, worst of all, suffer from severe spiritual malnourishment. Most of our work is concentrated in the Medium A Juvenile Prison which houses 2,000 youngsters between the ages of 18 and 21, three-quarters of whom are awaiting trial. Every day we are seeing God's Word change lives through the power of the Holy Spirit through a mixture of daily devotions, Bible studies, special programmes and one-to-one counselling. We have seen hardened gangsters and murderers tranformed into kind-hearted and loving disciples of Jesus, excited and inspired to go and share what they have discovered with other prisoners. It can be difficult to imagine them doing the crimes for which they were imprisoned, so complete is God's transformation!
There are not many full-time Christian workers from outside compared to the number of inmates, but we see that God is raising up evangelists and teachers from within. The prison authorities have been very supportive in helping us to create rooms (cells of up to 60 prisoners) which can be used solely to house and disciple Christian converts as well as allowing us to take inmates with us around the prison to act as peer-group evangelists."
http://www.hopenow.org.uk/p_pollsmoor.html
"Michelle Leslie refutes claims that wearing a Muslim headscarf during her trial was a stunt. Federation of Islamic Councils president Ameer Ali today said that if Leslie resumed work as an underwear model, she must admit that her claim that she had converted to Islam almost two years ago was a stunt. "If she wants to be a Muslim, she has to be very modest in her dress sense, modest in her language, modest in the way that she looks - everything."
Leslie, who, during her trial, teamed a Muslim headdress with modest clothing, drew anger at the weekend when she left Indonesia wearing skin tight jeans and a singlet top that showed part of her midriff. Today, Leslie family spokesman Sean Mulcahy said the model meant no disrespect by her outfit. He said she continued to follow her own version of Islam. "She is Muslim, she didn't wear anything yesterday to be disrespectful to anyone," Mr Mulcahy said. "She was a Muslim when she was doing catwalk stuff, so I don't think the fact that she did wear a hijab at times ... conflicts with her belief. "She has her own firm belief of her religion and she practises it as she sees fit."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/leslie-denies-muslim-stunt/2005/11/21/1132421573377.html
" A job recently became available for someone willing and able to teach construction skills to inmates at the Bradford County Correctional Facility in northeastern Pennsylvania. Applicants had to be general contractors familiar with the ins and outs of the building trade, such as estimating jobs and procuring supplies; they also had to be capable of supervising a crew of up to 10 men.
There was one more requirement: Anyone interested in the job had to be a Christian willing to share his or her faith if the opportunity to save a soul arose. Leading workers in prayer would also be an important part of the job. How did a religious requirement like that get affixed to a job funded with taxpayer dollars? Blame it on President George W. Bush.
Since Bush unveiled his “faith-based” initiative shortly after taking office in 2001, federal agencies, as well as state and local governments, have been prodded to dole out tax funds to religious organizations. A variety of social-service programs, including programs aimed at substance abusers, young people, elderly Americans and prison inmates and others in need of government aid have been especially targeted.
In Bradford County, a rural enclave with a population of about 62,000, the new faith-based approach translated into a contract diverting a combination of local, state and federal funds to an evangelical Christian group called The Firm Foundation to run vocational programs at the local jail. No other programs are offered. If you’re an inmate and want to learn a marketable skill to turn your life around after release, Firm Foundation is the only game in town."
http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7304&abbr=cs_
posted by Guambat Stew at Monday, November 21, 2005
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