When Thilo Sarrazin, a German banker previously mentioned on Un:dhimmi here, commented about the status of immigrant groups in Germany, he drew a lot of criticism and started a firestorm of debate.  On the one hand, his proclamation that Jews have a “Jewish gene” hearkens back to the dark days of Nazism, and the response was understandably negative.  I am not a biologist, but I doubt that this “gene” exists. If he meant to say that the Jewish people are genetically linked to one another, then that would at least make sense.  It’s possible that his phraseology was just a little off.

Mr. Sarrazin also commented about the resistance of Muslims to integrate into German society and their propensity towards violence, and in those two things he was right on the money.  The BBC News quotes him as saying  “most of the cultural and economic problems are concentrated in a group of the five to six million immigrants from Muslim countries.”  I would like to find statistics on that, but have not been able to nail them down as yet.

From the New York Times:

Though Condemned, German Author Opens Debate

BERLIN — When a German banker and former government official spoke publicly about a unique “Jewish gene,” when he attacked Islam as a source of violence and stunted development, when he espoused genetic theories that evoked the fright of the Nazi past, the political leadership here quickly condemned him as racist and called for him to be fired.

But Thilo Sarrazin, an executive with the central bank, or Bundesbank, and former senator of finance from Berlin, has not emerged as the marginalized hate-monger the initial condemnation foreshadowed. His book, “Germany Does Away With Itself,” which laments the growing number of Muslim immigrants, arguing they are “dumbing down” society, was released Monday and is already in its fourth printing, with sales expected to exceed 150,000 copies, according to his publisher.

Mr. Sarrazin has sparked a painful public discussion here that has highlighted one of the nation’s most vexing challenges: How to overcome what is widely seen as a failed immigration policy that over decades did little to support and help integrate the nearly 20 percent of the population who have an immigrant background and that has stoked anti-Islamic sentiment and hostility.

The surprisingly warm reception of Mr. Sarrazin’s book and his unrepentant posture have also provoked something less tangible, but perhaps more troublesome for policy makers here eager to keep the radical right from gaining a foothold as they have in other parts of Europe: Under cover of speaking truth to power, Mr. Sarrazin tried to legitimize hate speech, said his critics.

One of the most telling signs of the growing disconnect between the communities, officials here said, is the observation that the grandchildren of immigrants are less likely to integrate in society and less likely to even apply for citizenship than previous generations, creating an ethnic underclass in education and employment. Residents from immigrant families are twice as likely as ethnic Germans to be unemployed.

“This issue is now more important for Germany than the economy,” said Wolfgang Nowak, former senior adviser to the previous chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and the head of Deutsche Bank’s International Forum who argues that Mr. Sarrazin has done his country a favor by forcing the topic to the top of the political agenda and crashing through the barriers of political correctness.

“The condemnation of his book is an automatic reflex of a generation raised after Hitler,” he said.

Even some who found his approach offensive said that Mr. Sarrazin had “addressed a problem that will remain long after the waves of outrage have subsided: the enormous integration deficit of the Muslim minority in Germany, or at least of disturbingly large parts of it,” read an article in the center-left newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

In a newspaper interview published the day before the book was released, Mr. Sarrazin also spoke of a Jewish gene, a reference to recent studies showing Jews share many genes inherited from the ancestral population that lived in the Middle East long ago. He was criticized by everyone, including the chancellor, Angela Merkel.

His party wants to kick him out and the bank is considering firing him. On Thursday the board of the bank voted to ask Germany’s president to dismiss Mr. Sarrazin from the board, and Chancellor Merkel applauded the decision.Mr. Sarrazin’s stance, and the traction it has gained, has alarmed many in part because he is not a member of the extreme right, but is a longtime member of the center-left Social Democrats and the former top financial official for the city of Berlin, one of the centers of the immigrant community.

“If he were an extremist, no one would pay attention,” said Hatice Akyün, a writer who has debated Mr. Sarrazin and condemned his theories of innate inferiority in immigrants. “He is a Social Democrat. You cannot do what he is doing, not in this country. You cannot give this kind of thinking a democratic base.”

Ms. Akyün, whose father came to Germany from Turkey in 1961, said that the debate often comes down to the difference between integration, which she said immigrants and their families accept, even desire, and assimilation, which they reject.

“The only chance for acceptance in German society is total assimilation, don’t hold onto our traditions,” said Maxim Biller, whose own family moved to Germany from Prague when he was a child.

Mr. Sarrazin, who sports small round glasses and has a stern face topped by a shock of mostly white hair, said that he wanted to highlight what he described as the drain on Germany of its immigrant class.

In his book, he criticized Islam and blamed Muslim immigrants for refusing to integrate. He also blamed Germany for being too generous with its social benefits, which he said attracted immigrants looking for handouts. “No other religion in Europe is so demanding and no other migration group depends so much on the social welfare state and is so much connected to criminality,” he wrote in one passage.

Germany has had a difficult time coming to terms with its immigrant population. Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the guest worker program that brought large numbers of migrants, mostly Turks. Originally the plan was for the workers to return, though that idea evaporated in the 1970s when Germany allowed workers’ families to move here, said Gunter Piening, commissioner in the Senate office of integration and migration for the city of Berlin.

“The German philosophy was, ‘We are not a migration country,’ ” he said. “There were migrants, but there was no migrant policy.”

It was only in 2005 that Germany acknowledged that it had become a destination country, a shift that was not accompanied by a practical plan, Mr. Piening said. That has slowly begun to change, he said.

This month, for example, Berlin revamped its secondary education system because it recognized that children of immigrants were “getting an education which was good for nothing, a dead end.” Steps have been taken to also allow Muslims to be buried without coffins — the custom for Muslims is to be wrapped in a shroud — a small measure if ultimately adopted, but one that would nonetheless help make Muslims feel more welcomed, he said.

It is not, however, entirely benevolent as German officials recognize they will need immigrants in coming years. According to a recent survey by the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce there will be six million fewer Germans of working age by 2030.

It seems that Mr. Sarrazin is correct in at least some of his conclusions as he calls a spade a spade and speaks the truth about the failure of Muslims to integrate into German society.  If the Muslim population refuses to integrate into the general German society, and if refusal to integrate (by any group) leads to problems within German society as a whole, then it is certainly a debate worth having!

The handiwork of Israel's 'peace partners' - and your Jizya tax £$¥€ - at work

Their mothers must be so proud. Another ‘give ‘em a state’ moment from those adorable ‘Palestinians’:

JERUSALEM – Palestinian gunmen opened fire Tuesday on an Israeli car in the West Bank and killed four passengers on the eve of a new round of Mideast peace talks in Washington. The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility.

Assailants firing from a passing car riddled the vehicle with bullets as it traveled near Hebron — a volatile city that has been a flash point of violence in the past. Some 500 ultranationalist Jewish settlers live in heavily fortified enclaves in the city amid more than 100,000 Palestinians.

One of the victims was pregnant, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Israel’s national rescue service said the victims were two men and two women, and Israeli media said everyone in the car was killed.

Video broadcast live on Israel TV late Tuesday showed a white Subaru station wagon standing at an angle at the side of a road, its windows shot out and its doors dotted with bullet holes. The car was flanked by army and police vehicles and dozens of soldiers.

The attackers fled and Israeli forces set up roadblocks and carried out searches to try to catch them.
About 3,000 people joined a rally in Gaza to celebrate the attack. Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida was among them and told The Associated Press: “The Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron.”

Upon arriving in Washington for this week’s talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack and said “terror will not determine Israel’s borders or the future of the settlements.” Borders and the fate of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians want for a future state are key issues in the negotiations.

President Barack Obama hopes to forge a peace agreement within one year.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was already in Washington meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when the attack took place.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s office issued a statement charging the attack was aimed at undermining his government’s effort to build international support for “the Palestinian position and ending the (Israeli) occupation.”

Hamas, a fierce rival of the Western-backed Palestinian president, expelled Abbas’ forces from Gaza in 2007 and took over the territory. Abbas has been trying to limit the Islamic militants’ reach in the West Bank, jailing activists and even cracking down on mosque preachers.

Hamas, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, is considered a terrorist group by the U.S., Israel and European Union.

Asked about the shooting, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the U.S. is aware “there are those who will do whatever they can to disrupt or derail the process.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak promised a tough response to an attack he said was aimed at sabotaging the talks.

“Israel will not allow terrorists to raise their heads and will exact a price from the murderers and those who send them,” he said in a statement. U.N. envoy Robert Serry issued a statement condemning the attack and urging all parties “not to allow the enemies of peace to affect the negotiations about to be launched.”

There is widespread opposition to the resumption of the peace talks among Palestinians. Hamas opposes any contact with Israel and has harshly criticized Abbas for agreeing to resume the negotiations.

Opposition to resuming talks is also coming from within the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella group headed by Abbas. Some Fatah activists threaten to try to depose him if he makes concessions, and several hard-line PLO groups plan a demonstration in the West Bank administrative capital of Ramallah on Wednesday to protest resumption of negotiations.

Netanyahu also faces some domestic opposition from elements of his hard-line coalition of religious and nationalist parties. He has said that protecting Israel’s security interests will be his top priority in the talks.
Heading into a meeting with Clinton, Netanyahu said in the statement he would tell her, “This criminal murder proves again the need to stand firmly on Israel’s stringent security demands, and there will be no compromise on them.”

The attack disrupted a relative lull in the West Bank. The last fatal attack occurred in June, when Palestinians opened fire on a police vehicle near Hebron and killed one officer.

It was the deadliest Palestinian attack against Israelis since March 2008, when a lone assailant gunned down eight students in a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary.

A previous U.S. launching of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was also accompanied by deadly violence. Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli in the West Bank before then-President George W. Bush convened Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a summit in Annapolis, Maryland, in November 2007. The gunmen said the attack was “an act of protest against the Annapolis conference.”

Talking to reporters on his plane heading for Washington, Abbas called for decisive American involvement in the talks.

He said that if the two sides reach a deadlock, the Obama administration should “present bridging proposals to bridge the gap between the two positions.” In one major challenge to the first direct talks between the sides in two years, Abbas warned it would be difficult to continue negotiating if Israel fails to extend a 10-month curb on West Bank settlement construction that ends in late September. Netanyahu has not made a final decision.

One of the non-negotiable preconditions for any ‘Palestinian’ state settlement is that Israel has the right to live in peace, with secure borders. Yet one of Israel’s supposed ‘peace partners’ actually claimed responsibility for this brutal, depraved act of carnage.

They live in a dream world.

Gone fishin' - at least for a week or two...

And to fill in while we are away, (although we may still post the occasional article ourselves) we once again have a high-calibre guest writer stepping in to allow us to take a break.

Introducing Star CMC, dedicated US counterjihad and anti-media bias blogger since 2006.

In what we hope will be a refreshing change from our British ’stiff upper lip’, Star is American – and she’s pro-Israel, pro-military and a proud mother of four children whom she home-schools in order to protect them from the far-left indoctrination running rife in the US education system.

Star, like ourselves, doesn’t believe in the hippy-drippy ‘why can’t we all just get along’ vibe, so often espoused by intellectually-lazy liberals.  She says: ‘at some point we need to draw the line and not permit others to cross it. We must defend our countries against the scourge of radical Islam.  And to start, learn to recognise it; and call it by name.’

Quite.

A purely peaceful activist (you understand), onboard the IHH Mavi Marmara - though not the one named in this article

According to the report, Erdinç Tekir, who was wounded during the fighting which occurred after the IDF raided the Mavi Marmara on May 31, participated in a terrorist attack on a Russian ferry in the Black Sea in 1996.

The purpose of the attack was to bargain for the release of Chechen prisoners in Russia, and as far as is known, it was carried out by an armed group of Abkhazian/Caucasian radical Islamists, which were supported by Turkish Islamists.

Tekir recently admitted during an interview he gave to the Islamic website Dünya Bülteni, that he had participated in the terrorist attack to bargain for the release prisoners as part of his activity to promote the Chechen-Abkhazian cause, this according to a report published by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

During the same interview, Tekir said that he had been an IHH volunteer for about ten years, and that he had been introduced to the organization by friends after his release from a Turkish prison. However, he said he became close to the organization when he participated in hijacking the ferry. Tekir also said that he “struggled hard” to become a passenger on the Mavi Marmara because he wanted to make a contribution. He falsely claimed that the ship was not carrying terrorists but volunteers and activists, and that the IDF soldiers boarded the ship from the sea and air while shooting live ammunition.

The IDF raided the Mavi Marmara on May 31, after it had attempted to break a naval blockade being imposed on the Gaza Strip, claiming it was bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. As the IDF commandos descended onto the deck of the ship by rope, they were assaulted by the activisits on the ship who were using metal clubs and knives. The activists snatched two pistols from the commandos and at them with them. Nine people were killed in the raid, most of them from Turkey, where the radical IHH group organized the flotilla.

It was later determined that there were no humanitarian supplies on the Marmara.

The report on Tekir is the first proof of the presence of a Turk with a terrorist past among the IHH operatives on board the Mavi Marmara. While there is no information indicating that the IHH was involved in the hijacking of the Russian ferry in 1996, Tekir admitted to the Islamic website that he became closer to IHH while he was active in the Abkhazian-Chechen cause.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center added that its examination has shown that Tekir’s name appears on the list of names of those wounded on the Mavi Marmara, and also on the list of the hijackers of the Avrasya (the Russian ferry), a list appearing in a Wikipedia article on the attack.

This blog has been instrumental in exposing the Turkish terror-supporters of the Erdogan government-backed IHH, a supposed ‘humanitarian charity’, so we welcome this report from as further proof of what really lies behind them – and much of the so-called ‘Free Gaza’ movement.

The astounding lack of critical analysis from the media has meant that in the minds of most casual observers the people participating in these ‘flotillas’ are merely concerned, possibly slightly eccentric humanitarians, who wish nothing more than to make a stand about their perceived mistreatment of the ‘Palestinians’ by the Israelis; when in fact many are far-left radicals and hardline Islamists, who seek to delegitimise and terrorise the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

[Source: INN]

Carla Bruni with her husband, French President Nikolas Sarkozy

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been branded a ‘prostitute’ by Iran after she publicly attacked the country for threatening to stone a woman to death.

France’s First Lady is part of a campaign to save the life of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two.She is accused of cheating on her husband and then helping to kill him, and is now facing capital punishment for her crimes.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, who became President Nicolas Sarkozy¿s third wife two years ago, has signed a petition calling for Sakineh’s release

Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtian is accused of cheating on her husband and then helping to kill him, and is now facing capital punishment for her crimes

Ms Bruni-Sarkozy, who became President Nicolas Sarkozy’s third wife two years ago, has signed a petition calling for Sakineh’s release.

Last week the former supermodel said: ‘I just can’t see what good could come out of this macabre ceremony, whatever the judicial reasons put forward to justify it.’

Addressing Sakineh directly in an open letter, Ms Bruni-Sarkozy wrote: ‘Why shed your blood and deprive your children of their mother? Because you have lived, because you have loved, because you’re a woman, and because you’re an Iranian? Everything within me refuses to accept this.’

But Kayhan (which means ‘Universe’ in English), the Iranian daily newspaper which acts as a mouthpiece for the country’s ultra conservative Islamic regime, has now accused 42-year-old Ms Bruni-Sarkozy of being a hypocrite.
An editorial in the paper points to her chequered love life, which has included numerous relationships with high-profile celebrities.

How Iran's ruling thug-ocracy views women's rights

Entitled ‘French prostitutes join the human rights protest,’ the article singles out Ms Bruni-Sarkozy and Isabelle Adjani, the French actress and friend of the First Lady who is also calling for Sakineh’s release.
Kayhan aims to ‘defend the ideology of the Islamic Revolution’ and is directly under the supervision of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.

Iranian state television also attacked Ms Bruni-Sarkozy for her support for Sakineh, saying she was using it to try and justify her own immorality.

The Elysee Palace had no formal reaction to the slurs in the Iranian media, but an insider said Ms Bruni-Sarkozy was ‘deeply shocked’ by the personal attack.

A protester, dressed with a costume to depict a woman stoned to death in Iran, participates in a demonstration in Paris yesterday over the death sentence against Mrs Mohammadi Ashtiani

Carla Bruni represents the four things that the sexually-repressed old men that run Iran most despise: Female, attractive, opinionated; and not dressed in an ugly black tent.

Keep it up.

[Source: Daily Mail]

Indian efforts to trace Hawala operators involved in money laundering and terror financing are facing hurdles due to non-cooperation of many countries where these racketeers operate, according to a global task force. The unhelpful countries include tax havens like Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Bahamas and Switzerland.

To get around the hurdles being created by these countries India is trying to strengthen its tax treaties with them. “The authorities (Indian) have indicated that part of their frustration in trying to tackle this (Hawala) problem is the lack of co-operation that they receive from some countries where the transfers originate,” said the multi-national Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental organisation founded in 1989 by the G7 (group of seven industrialised nations) to develop policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

“This includes countries where Hawala activities are not licensed or regulated effectively and countries where Hawala activities are legal. To some extent, the move to suppress the activity in India has also been hampered by the foreign exchange liberalisation programme,” the top body said.

The global task force said this in its full report that it prepared after it met top Indian officials from the Finance Ministry and agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Income-Tax department and Financial Intelligence Unit. Hawala is an illegal mode of money transfer and it is regulated in India under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

According to government data on Hawala transactions, almost Rs 90 crore [1 Crore= 10 million - Ed] was laundered during the last year (upto October 2010) while the corresponding figures for 2008-09 was Rs 932 crore, for 2007-08 Rs 112 crore and during 2006-07 it was Rs 110 crore. The task force came to India last year to assess its performance parameters in implementing anti-money laundering, counter-terror financing measures and laws like the FEMA before including it into the top body recently.

The task force, however, praised the Enforcement Directorate’’s efforts to tackle these cases. “It (ED) inherited some 15,000 cases of criminal activity under the FERA, and had managed to clear about 12,000 cases by end-2009, but this remains the primary focus of its work on Hawala.

“A much more limited number of cases have been referred to it under the FEMA. Eleven persons have been found to be repeat offenders under FEMA to date,” the report said. 

How Hawala works - the informal Muslim money-transfer system that is implicated in terror funding and crime

Hawala is an informal money transfer system based on an ‘honour code’ among a worldwide network of Hawaladar (money brokers/agents). Instead of money being transferred via a regulated system such as a bank or agency, promissory notes are exchanged between agents, with each others’ books being offset and balanced over time. No actual money changes hands. This allows rapid (and almost impossible-to-detect) movement of cash – a fact not lost on drug gangs, money-launderers and terrorists.

Once again we find Western greed is playing its part in promoting Islamisation and facilitating Islamic terrorism. In addition to promoting mass immigration (often from Muslim countries) into developed nations in order to procure cheap labour to undercut local markets, the tax evasion infrastructure used by the super-rich such as that found in the Caribbean and Switzerland may also be providing cover for terror finance.

[Source: The Times of India]

Pakistanis waiting for aid - but Christians and those of other non-Muslim faiths are being denied help

Christians and members of other minority religions are being treated as second-class citizens, said Father Mario Rodrigues, the Lahore-based director of Catholic Mission.

“They often receive little assistance or are excluded altogether,” he told Fides, the Vatican’s news agency.

Aid is being delivered by “government officials sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism or by Muslim relief organisations”, Fides claimed in its report, citing other unnamed aid workers.

About 200,000 Christians in Punjab province and about 600,000 Christians and Hindus in Sindh province have been affected by weeks of monsoon rain.

At least 1,600 people have been killed in the country’s worst natural disaster, and on Friday, officials warned that the death toll was expected to rise significantly as many people remained missing.

Over the past two days, fresh floods from the surging river Indus smashed through levees in two places, forcing one million people from their homes.

Ahmad Kamal, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority, denied the accusations of prejudice. “We have no discrimination, no requirements, no checklist. Aid goes to everyone,” he said [right. - Ed].

However, Nazir Bhatti, President of the Pakistan Christian Congress, urged donors to make special provisions for Christians.

“I appeal to organisations and countries which are giving aid to government of Pakistan for flood victims to allocate separate or special funds for Christian flood victims and transfer it to Caritas Pakistan or Bishops Conference of Pakistan for food, tents and medical facilities,” he said in a statement.

In all, some eight million people need emergency help and the monsoon season is due to last another three weeks.

The BBC has had the Pakistan floods story permanently affixed to he top of its news agenda for weeks now – but, true to form for an organisation that seems to delight in ‘informing’ us about Islam (and airbrushing out all the nasty bits), there is no mention whatsoever of this story – as always, it seems, it is left to a right-of-centre newspaper to present the fuller picture.

Future humanitarian aid should be witheld altogether, until the Pakistanis can prove that assistance is being given to all – and that an appropriate part of the massive amounts of ‘development aid’ it receives every year is apportioned to preventative work.

[Source: The Telegraph]

Prison jIhad: Islam has been allowed to gain a tight grip inside Britain's jails

As we have said previously, reliance on supposed Muslim ‘experts’, dhimmitude and appeasement have combined to make incarceration in Britain’s prisons something of a breeze for Muslims, who, according insiders, are beginning to dominate daily prison life.

A new report from a highly-credible defence and security institute claims that British jails are also becoming potential hothouses for home-grown Muslim terrorists:

Britain faces a potential “new wave” of home-grown terrorist attacks as a result of an escalating rate of radicalisation of Muslims inside the prison system, according to a report published today by a leading defence and security think-tank.

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) says that up to 800 “potentially violent radicals” who have not been convicted of terrorist offences could be released from prisons in England and Wales over the next five to 10 years and will pose a significant challenge to the security services to identify them.

The estimate rests upon “prison probation sources” saying that one in 10 of the 8,000 Muslim prisoners in high security jails in England and Wales could be successfully targeted.

However, the Ministry of Justice disputed the figures in the report. It said last night: “The prison and probation service does not recognise the figure of 800 ‘violent radicals’ referred to in the report, nor do we agree that jihadist radicalisation is taking place at a rapid rate.

“There are only 6,000 prisoners in the high security estate, most of whom are not Muslim. The figure of ‘one in 10 of the 8,000 Muslims’ in the high security estate is therefore unrecognisable.”

The report by Michael Clarke, the institute’s director, and Valentina Soria says that the prisoners are potential recruits for a “new wave” of terrorism likely to involve a shift in tactics. They predict a move away from large-scale, co-ordinated bombings, which have needed considerable training and operational support, to the greater use of lone individuals carrying out smaller-scale random attacks against different targets.

“The spectre of terrorist attacks has receded from the public mind for the time being, yet more than any other country, the UK has the greatest to fear from home-grown terrorism,” says their report. “Certainly, British security services are acutely aware of the possibilities for a wave of individual random attacks against different targets. Attacks on ‘crowded places’ are near the top of the government’s risk rankings over the next five years.”

The report raises particular concerns about what is going on inside Britain’s prison system. It stresses that only 23 of the 230 people convicted on terrorism or terrorism-related offences as a result of the first wave of jihadist attacks against Britain since 9/11 are currently serving life or indeterminate sentences. More than a third were sentenced to between eight months and four years as they were convicted of less serious non-terrorist charges and are now being released or are soon to be released. Probation sources confirmed to the Guardian yesterday that they expected the number of such prisoners who have been released to pass the 100 mark next April. They said that six had already been recalled to prison for further offences, including one who had been trying to get hold of a gun.

The RUSI report argues that the experience of Northern Ireland shows it is more likely that the majority of those will remain committed to their cause and may serve as a source of motivation to others, albeit in clandestine ways. It says there is evidence of jihadist radicalisation taking place at a rapid rate, especially within the eight high-security prisons.

Clarke and Soria suggest that the emergence of new al-Qaida leaders such as Anwar al-Awlaki demonstrates an increase in the use of more individuals, carrying out attacks on a smaller scale. This new breed of jihadists have only tenuous links to any major terrorist organisation and receive little training and few resources, increasing the difficulty for the police and intelligence services in tracking and intercepting them.

RUSI said last night it stood by its 800 estimate but accepted the figure of 8,000 Muslim prisoners was across the prison system, not for those just in high security jails.

The justice ministry said the holding of extremist views and the process of radicalisation were found in wider society, not just jails. “The presumption that holding radical or extreme views necessarily leads to violent extremist behaviour and criminality should be challenged. All our high security prisons operate enhanced monitoring and intelligence-gathering on those convicted or suspected of involvement in terrorism or extremism, and staff are trained to recognise and deal with behaviours which are of concern,” it said.

The ministry added that a dedicated expert unit within the Prison Service existed to tackle the risk of radicalisation posed by those offenders with violent extremist views, and those who might attempt to improperly influence others.

Once again we are seeing the unappetising fruits of the ‘engagement, not punishment’ brigade. Muslims are massively overrepresented in Britain’s penal system, with some 12% of British prisoners identifying as Muslims, compared to under 3% of the general population.

[Source: The Guardian/PA]