Court fight for banned jihadi alert jail pastor
A CHRISTIAN prison chaplain who revealed his Bible meetings were hijacked by Islamic extremists is taking legal action after being punished for whistleblowing.
Pastor Paul Song was banned indefinitely from working in London jails after exposing the influence of Muslim gangs at HMP Brixton in The Mail on Sunday.
Lawyers will seek a judicial review of the decision at the High Court hearing on Tuesday. They will claim it, among other things, breached his right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Pastor Song, 51, said last night: ‘After 20 years of service supporting vulnerable inmates at HMP Brixton, I have been severely punished for exposing the truth.
‘What has happened to me has set a dangerous precedent for anyone else who dares to tell the public about the growing domination of Islamic extremism in our prisons. I am determined to fight for justice.’
Mr Song told The Mail on Sunday in a 2018 interview that he was left in a state of near-constant fear after Muslim gangs came to dominate the South London jail.
He described one chilling incident when a small group stormed his gathering in the chapel and began loudly praising the jihadis who hacked soldier Lee Rigby to death in the street. The interlopers insisted that hacking to death the 25-year-old soldier in 2013 was justified as it avenged the killing of Muslims by British Armed Forces.
Mr Song described how a hardline element grew increasingly powerful, telling vulnerable inmates to convert to Islam.
When an imam took over as HMP Brixton’s head chaplain, he banned the pastor from the jail because, the imam said, some of the material on the pastor’s evangelical courses was too ‘radical’, he called an inmate a ‘terrorist’ and behaved threateningly towards him, which Mr Song strongly denied.
The chaplain was later cleared and reinstated. But after his Mail on Sunday interview he was banned again for ‘failure to adhere to the expected requirements of a chaplaincy volunteer’.
The Christian Legal Centre, which has supported Mr Song, said: ‘He has essentially been punished for exposing Islamic radicalisation in the prison to the media.’