Inviting imams into prisons
Italy’s plan to reduce the risk of a jihadi-inspired attack is pinned in small part on Mimoun El Hacmi, an imam who bikes to the prison here every week and exhorts Muslim inmates not to stray from life’s “right path” or hate people who aren’t Muslim.
Seven inmates — three Moroccans, three Tunisians and a Somali — left their cells at Terni Penitentiary on an early summer day to listen as the Moroccan-born imam led prayers and delivered a sermon.
“If I am praying, I am not cooking up ideas to harm others on the outside,” a 35-year-old Tunisian inmate said, sitting cross-legged in the small, beige-tiled room that was converted into the prison’s Mosque of Peace.
None of the inmates would give their names, and prison rules precluded asking why they were serving time.
So far spared the attacks that have stunned France, Belgium, Britain and Germany, Italy has relied mostly on arresting and deporting suspected extremists to try to keep the country safe. But the Italian government has come to embrace prevention, too, especially in the prisons it doesn’t want to become training grounds for potential extremists.
Inviting in imams who have been vetted to make sure they espouse “moderate views” is a tactic now being employed in Italian prisons to counter radicalization among inmates. In February, the government signed a recruiting agreement with the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations (UCOII) in Italy, which professes to foster Islamic “pluralism.”
When preaching to inmates, “we stress that we are Italians of Muslim faith, Europeans of Muslim faith . . . We are 100 per cent citizens with rights and duties,” UCOII president Izzeddin Elzir said.
Italy’s second generation of Muslim immigrants is just coming of age now. For the most part, the nation lacks neighbourhoods with heavy concentrations of Muslim residents. But Muslims make up a disproportionate share of the population in Italy’s prisons.
More than a third of all inmates in Italian penitentiaries are foreigners, and 42 per cent of those come from the majority-Muslim countries of Morocco, Albania and Tunisia, according to a 2017 report by inmate advocacy group Antigone.
The advocacy group counted 411 chaplains, but only 47 imams working in Italy’s 200 prisons. Prison system officials worry that if imams don’t make regular visits, inmates might be more vulnerable to the influence of those who are already radicalized.
“It’s not so much those (inmates) who preach, but those who submit to this proselytizing” who are considered at risk, Terni Penitentiary Superintendent Natascia Bastianelli said.
So far, 13 UCOII imams have started preaching in eight prisons after being screened by interior ministry officials. Government officials and the organization plan to evaluate the strategy’s effectiveness as a de-radicalization tool this fall.
On the day when El Hacmi was at Terni Penitentiary, 46 of the 109 foreigners in the medium-security section were from northern Africa. The imam delivered his sermon in Arabic, sprinkled with Italian and French phrases.
He said he teaches his followers to “respect Italians, respect neighbours, your colleagues, your cellmates.”