19 April 2016

Imams are allowed to preach hate in prisons

Muslim chaplains appointed by the Ministry of Justice routinely distribute Islamist hate literature in British prisons, a leaked report has found.

The review, ordered last year by Michael Gove, found extremist pamphlets and CDs in more than ten jails in November. It uncovered misogynistic and homophobic leaflets, hate tracts encouraging the murder of apostates and ultra-conservative Islamic literature preaching contempt for basic British values.

The material, some of it published in Saudi Arabia, was kept on bookshelves in prison chaplaincy rooms where it was available for anybody to come in and pick up, a Whitehall source said.

The review, led by a former senior Home Office official, has not yet been cleared for publication. Its discovery of extremist literature is understood to have prompted an urgent internal alert in the Ministry of Justice that warned of a risk of “severe reputational damage” to the department. [The Times (£)] Read more