From : http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/ and a link over at TheReligionofPeace.com :
Muslim fury over prison food
Mar 2 2006
By Adam Smith, Birmingham Mail
DISGUSTED Muslim prisoners at a Midland jail are boycotting meals after a rogue kitchen worker was caught filling their halal curries with unholy ham.
Prisoners at HMP Blakenhurst received a written apology from the Prison Service after the discovery and Imams were on hand to console distraught Muslims.
Wasim Zafar, aged 19, from Alum Rock, spoke out after visiting his relative in the Howell Drive Category B prison.
"He was very depressed and had lost a lot of weight because he has not been eating much since he found out what had happened with the curries," he said. "He feels he can't trust anyone again after finding out such a disgusting problem with the food."
And Wasim's brother Anis, aged 27, who had also visited the prison, explained why including ham in the halal curry caused such anguish.
He said: "This is the ultimate insult to any Muslim. All the food we eat has to be blessed."
"This has really messed up the heads of anyone who ate the unholy meat. Religion is central to any Muslims life and this shows total disrespect to our religion."
Islam decrees that followers cannot eat meat from a pig as it creates "lowliness in character and destroys moral and spiritual faculties in a man".
It is unknown how long the prison kitchen worker had been contaminating the halal food.
The Prison Service admitted there had been an incident at the HMP Blakenhurst, which houses 1,070 inmates, and that the prisoner, who was caught throwing tinned ham in the curries, had been punished.
"We can confirm that officials at HMP Blakenhurst discovered that a prisoner had contaminated halal food," said a spokesman. "The person responsible has been disciplined and everyone who ate any of the food was sent a letter of apology and Imams based at the prison were on hand to deal with any issues that have arisen."
There are currently an estimated 4,500 Muslim prisoners in jails in England and Wales with each prison offering halal food and special measures for prayers.
********************
I particularly enjoyed the comment that the ham had caused "anguish". Regardless, I think we need to make up a list of things that have been claimed to be the "Ultimate Insult to Muslims". I'm starting to lose track. Cartoons, ham, blogging apostates, etc........will the madness ever end?
Hat Tip: www.thereligionofpeace.com
13 comments:
Pim's,
Hehehe. The Islamist are trembling.
They get upset about anything and nothing. You know Jesus is also a Muslim prophet. So no more crucifixes!
I am in a mood to insult. Especially our friends in the UK.
Notice this interesting statistic from the UK prison system.
In 2001 6095 prisoners in the UK were Muslim. That is 9% of the prison population. But they only made up 3% of the population. In all other European countries the same pattern can be seem. A religion of peace as we can see.
They think it is the ham ... I think it is Islam that cultivates "lowliness in character and destroys moral and spiritual faculties in a man." But then again, I am preaching to the choir.
If the risk of "ham contamination" continues, maybe Muslims will reconsider committing crimes. I can even imagine a Judge sentencing a Muslim to two years of Virginia ham and a week in solitary with bacon.
Cruel and unusual? No, just unusual.
"We can confirm that officials at HMP Blakenhurst discovered that a prisoner had contaminated halal food,"
Seems like he was trying to get "time off for good behavior".....he deserves it.
Perhaps there should be a contest to see what is the most ultimate of ultimate insults! (My own opinion is that many people are missing an important truth here-- the "ultimate of ultimate" insults to the extremely sensitive feelings of Muslims is not, as many people erroneously believe, pictures of the prophet (pbuh) or anything related to pigs (peace be upon them too! :-)
No. The ultimate insult to Islam is -- peace be upon them also--clothing labels!
(I was going to say "You can't make this stuff up"-- but I won't :-)
I love it Krishna!! Let's hold a contest. I'll start googling this one too. I know that "LOL" is pretty cliche, but I am actually laughing out loud right now!! Every single freaking story includes some comment about something being the "Ultimate Insult to Muslims". Remember the scuffle over the fashion show years ago when a designer, darnit I'm forgetting the name now, had arabic script on dresses? That was an ultimate insult and they had to remove it. What can I say, I love Vogue. This was back in the 90s though. I'll look it up, actually.
Yeah, it was Lagerfeld designing for Chanel in 1994 (my memory isn't as bad as I thought). He took the script from the Taj Mahal, and it was from the koran. So muslims freaked out (of course), Claudia Schiffer received death threats after having worn the dress in Paris (black with the arabic sewn on in pearls).
Lagerfeld was forced to pull the dress from the collection and Chanel even went so far as to destroy the PHOTOGRAPHS and NEGATIVES of the dress. And of course apologized profusely to the muslim community.
I do believe, however, that the dress WAS pictured in magazines at the time. I will look, as I have a collection from this time period.
All of this is just too hilarious to me, from Nike to Coke to Burger King etc. I may have to write something up. But I do think that a project is in order here in terms of listing how many times the "outrages" have occurred. Even my Grandmother isn't this sensitive, and that's saying a lot!
I am tempted to start a new photo group on Flickr-- perhaps call it "Pictures of the 'Ultimate Insult" to Islam'. Or--The Search for the Ultimate Insult.
Btw, if anyone is interested, stop by and leave a comment here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/socialconstructs/discuss/72057594071209279/
Its a new Flickr group called "Social Constructs"-- the topic being discussed is "Cartoons that Start Things Up". (I did not start that group or topic but am participating).
Jason Pappas, you took the words right out of my mouth! Well, it is only consistent with the Muslim mindset to blame anyone and everything for one's own shortcomings, irascibility, depravity, and xenophobia.
Sorry, once I found the story about the sex toy scandal I just lost it. I couldn't post anything due to fits of laughter. Check it out:
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=10631
Well, as Ali Sina has said, ridicule is the weakness that we need to exploit. And how can you not ridicule people freaking out over all of these "Ultimate Insults to Muslims"? It's just damned funny. We need to laugh until they either destroy themselves with rage or are put in their place.
I was under the impression women's hair was the ultmate insult, followed closely by Piglet.
Hmmm... I know we've been talking about the value of ridicule as a weapon/tool vis a vis Islam for a while. . .
We have found a TRUE weakness here, something we can take seriously and exploit very effectively.
My first attempt at this comment had a lot of smart ass things in it, but truly, even though we in the West have a really hard time imagining just how effective it can be at inducing massive cortisol production with subsequent adrenal exhaustion and death, it can.
If we keep up the "insults," they would, of course, continue their infantile behavior (Ali Sina was SO RIGHT to call them "narcissists" - all two year olds are narcissists, only most people in the world outgrow it) and demonstrate to the rest of the world that we, the ones who "get it," are NOT WRONG about Islam!
This cartoon thing has been the best thing that has happened so far in this conflict; it has brought more heads up out of the sand than the downing of the Twin Towers.
RIDICULE RULES!
Three cheers for Krishna's idea!
Ridicule does rule. I finally compiled some "insults" and wrote an article. I'm going to Flickr. Well, back to Flickr I guess!
PG,
I can't wait!
Post a Comment