http://www.islamonline.net/English/N...rticle04.shtml

PARIS, June 19, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – French prisons are teeming with Muslims, a phenomenon chaplains and sociologists blame on marginalization and towering poverty and unemployment rates among the Muslim minority.

“It really harms the image of Islam and Muslims in France that prisons are teeming with Muslims,” Mamdo Sango, a Muslim chaplain, told IslamOnline.net.

Iranian-French researcher Farhad Khosrokhavar said in his recently published book Islam in Prisons that Muslims make up some 70 percent of a total of 60,775 prisoners in France.

As ethnicity-based censuses are banned in France, he said complexion, names and religious traditions like prohibition of pork indicate that Muslims constitute an overwhelming majority in prisons.

Khosrokhavar also noted that Islam has become a sought-after religion in prisons with a Christian prisoner asking prison authorities to provide him with halal meat almost on a weekly basis.

Afro-French Sango, for his part, complained about a severe shortage in the number of Muslim chaplains in French prisons.

“I have to move from a prison to another on Fridays to meet the religious needs of Muslims prisoners,” he said.

There are only 69 Muslim chaplains in a total of 185 prisons, a figure which is dwarfed by 500 Catholic chaplains.

France is home to some six to seven Muslims, the largest Muslim minority in Europe.

Failed Policies

Although none of the French Muslim organizations approached by IOL had a clear answer to the mind-boggling phenomenon, some heaped blame on failed integration policies.

“The successive French governments failed to come up with a successful integration policy,” said Ammar Al-Asfar, a Muslim prison chaplain.

Asfar, who doubles as the prison affairs official at the umbrella French Council for Muslim Faith (CFCM), said French governments should have adopted programs putting all French citizens on equal footing.

“Young French Muslims are more vulnerable to fall prey to depression and suffer the grave consequences of academic failure and family break-up,” he told IOL.

Sociologists and French Muslim leaders further hold racism and discrimination as the root cause of unemployment and crime rates among the Muslim minority.

French Muslims and Arabs are pinning high hopes on the appointment of a Muslim of Algerian origin as junior minister in charge of equal opportunity under the new cabinet of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Azouz Begag, 48, has already gained the reputation of being a fighter for equality and a struggler against all sorts of discrimination.

A Sorbonne research released earlier in the year by the French Observatory Against Racism found that Arab names and dark complexion represent an obstacle to jobseekers.

The “Discrimination at Workplace” research said that the organization sent 325 CVs of competitive applicants, who only differ in names and origin, to find that the opportunity for North African applicants to get a job is five times less than natives.

Fanaticism

French analysts further warned that prisons might be a breeding ground for extremists.

They cited the case of a young Muslim, Khaled Khilkhal, who was blamed by the authorities of involvement in terrorist operations.

Some experts claim he was influenced by extremist ideas in prison though he used to lead an extravagant life before serving time.

Secretary of State to the Rights of the Victims Nicole Guedi has also warned that fanaticism was gaining ground among Muslim prisoners, mostly aged 18-35.

Prison authorities have even become phobic about rising fanaticism in prisons to the extent that they sometimes deny Muslim prisoners the right to have prayer rugs, Asfar said.

“It is paradoxical that prison authorities seek the help of those so-called extremist prisoners to maintain public order when quarrels erupt as they are revered by most of the prisoners,” he noted.

In April, the Fleury-Merogis prison in south Paris punished a Muslim prisoner with eight days in solitary confinement for performing a congregational prayer.

The Administrative Court in Versailles, however, did the prisoner justice and reaffirmed his right to practice his religion.
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INteresting article in light of the guantanamo bay discussion....

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I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls.

If racism and discrimination are to blame, why are Muslims apparently flocking to France. Seems to me I might want to avoid places that hate white dudes (which is why I never took that job in Syria).

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This space for rent.

Why? Do the French support their government throwing people in prison without a trial or a chance to prove their innocence?

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

Hmmmm....weren't U.S. forces criticized for alleged mistreatment of the Koran? Didn't violent protests erupt in the muslim world as a result?

And yet France systematcially deprives muslim inmates of the right to practice their beliefs...and, given that muslims make up only approximately 10% of the population of France and 70% of it's prison inmates, it also could be argued that some of those inmates might indeed be innocent victims of institutionalized racism.

Catz

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I gave myself to Jesus, but now he never calls.

Oh the horror!! Where, oh where, is Amnesty International and Jimmy Carter when the muzzies need them???!?

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I was banned from godlike productions... and loved it.

Conservative Muslims aren't ready to live in a society as secular as France. They'd be better off in the American midwest.

Also, someone needs to proofread:

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"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." - Hassan-i-Saba

Both of them!

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I was banned from godlike productions... and loved it.

Yeah, and the purely scientific criteria used in the study is of every bit as high a standard as the proof read.

But...if we can accept as a given that Muslims do make-up a disproportionately high percentage of the French prison population, it leads to certain questions: why is this the case? is this a function of French/Christian bigotry?

There was an interesting piece a few weeks ago in The Observer (British) on this very topic. It seems that a great many Muslims who relocate to the west experience varying degrees of discrimination and racial abuse in their adopted countries and consequently become disaffected over time. Married to an already entrenched reluctance in some - often for religious or cultural reasons - to even wish to assimilate in the adopted society with a full heart, the problem is still further exacerbated.

Quite apart from all of the obvious problems this may create within a society (creation of an impoverished, isolated, resentful underclass), the article pointed out that some Militant Islamic Fundamentalist groups have begun targeting this pool of the disaffected in the west for recruitment.

Odd, truly - what bigotry can breed.[/i]

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Hold on. Blacks comprise about 13% of the population of the United States yet they comprise about 50% of prison inmates. Would you argue that they might be innocent victims of institutionalized racism?

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

Is it possible that maybe Muslims commit 70% of the crimes in France and that is why they enjoy the benefits of free room and board in French prisons ? Just thought that I would ask !!!!!!

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"I was born at night, but it was not last night night"