NEW YORK — Inmates at the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., were stunned by what they saw at the chapel library on Memorial Day _ hundreds of books had disappeared from the shelves.
The removal of the books is occurring nationwide, part of a long-delayed, post-Sept. 11 federal directive intended to prevent radical religious texts, specifically Islamic ones, from falling into the hands of violent inmates.
Three inmates at Otisville filed a lawsuit over the policy, ..."The set of books that have been taken out have been ones that we used to minister to new converts when they come in here," inmate John Okon, speaking on behalf of the prison's Christian population, told a judge last week.
Apparently, assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Feldman told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain that prisons would not allow Muslim texts under the new rules. So there you have it. Only the Christian Bible. Perhaps Jewish Texts. But perhaps Buddhist and Hindu text are not allowed. Because the 2.2 million people, most guilty of pot, have to be kept from the radicalism of Islam.
There you have it. Christianist Fascism pure and simple.
Where did it come from? April 2004 Department of Justice review of the way prisons choose Muslim religious services providers. Well, only Republican attorneys and only Christian texts.
Feel better?
The DOJ also wants to monitor and record all their prayer sessions.
Inmate Moshe Milstein told the judge by telephone that the chaplain at Otisville removed about 600 books from the chapel library on Memorial Day. 600 prayer books, that were written by the wrong God have been removed from prisons across the country.
"A lot of what we are missing were definitely prayer books or prayer guides and religious laws on the part of the Muslim faith," he said.
The judge said the lawsuit might be premature because the inmates had not yet followed prison administrative complaint procedures. She declined to block the book removals, the remedy sought by the lawsuit.
Ron Kuby, a civil rights lawyer who has represented a former head Islamic chaplain banned from the state prison system after he was accused of making extremist statements, called the prison book removal "a mass Memorial Day book burning."
But he also said there might be limits to relief the prisoners can seek because prisoners' First Amendment rights are severely limited.
See? Only people who worship Jesus are allowed their texts because they might be radicalized. Thank God Bush and his cronies aren't radicalizd.
The damage the DOJ continues to wreak on us reachees everyone, even someone in prison seeking a little solace from God.
UPDATE- Everyone I have talked to admits that Muslim texts are being looked at and in many cases removed. It varies from jail to jail. Some have said all Muslim texts. So say just the studies and the Malcolm X work. In any case I took one word out of the headline.
By the way, it doesn't make this any less tragic or outrageous.
Link here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...