Government report says inmates are forced to follow religious practices or face violent repercussions

Monday 05 August - A recent report carried out by the Ministry of Justice surveyed 83 male prisoners and 73 staff at three of the eight high-security prisons in the country. It found that large gangs of Muslim men were using intimidation tactics to force conversions and rules on other prisoners.

The gangs were made up of multiple ranks including leadership, foot soldiers, recruiters, and enforcers. Those who had committed terrorist activities were said to hold key positions of influence among the gangs, as well as those who can speak Arabic and recite the Quran.

It was said that the gangs were establishing Islamic rules within the prisons such as underwear having to be worn in the showers and banning the cooking of bacon.

The report highlighted the fact that Muslim gangs were the only serious organised gang threat within the prisons surveyed and that as a result, they wielded considerable influence and power over their fellow inmates.

Though Muslims are only 18-20% of the prison population in the U.K., the Muslim gangs are the biggest, best-organized, and most violent of the gangs behind-bars. And they are single-mindedly dedicated to converting as many non-Muslim prisoners as possible and imposing Muslim rule behind bars.

There is no escape from the pressure to convert, for Muslim gangs exist in all of the prisons, ready to use violence against any non-Muslim prisoners who refuse to convert. The threat is everywhere. No prison is safe.

In 2018, the Ministry of Justice reportedly blocked an independent three-year report from being carried out into the impact of Islamic gangs in UK prisons because of fears of the results. One source said: “The corporate culture of the service is defensive and they will have been concerned about what this proposed project will discover.”

There is no way to prevent Muslims from intimidating non-Muslim prisoners within the  present system. Prisons lack sufficient personnel to monitor every threatening encounter of Muslims with non-Muslims.  

But how do Muslims manage to attain such power in prisons, if they are still such a small proportion of the general population?

In every Western country, it turns out that the percentage of prisoners who are Muslim far exceeds their numbers in the general population.

In the United States, 1% of the population is Muslim, but they constitute 15% of the prison population.

In France, they are 8% of the general population but 70% of the prison population.

In the U.K., they are 5% of the total population, but almost 20% of the prison population. And apparently these percentages are more than enough to give Muslims the power to rule the roost in prisons.

Author's comment: There is only one way to prevent these forced conversions. That is to make sure that Muslims are confined to Muslim-only prisons. Any non-Muslims who wish to read Islamic  texts (Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira), or to meet with Muslim chaplains, would have the freedom to do so. They would only be protected from systematic campaigns of forced conversion through violence, which are an offense to true freedom of religion.