Liberated in the name of the people (all people, but particularly Canadian Muslims) from Umeda via Eteraz.org.
It’s the right of all people including prisoners to practice their religious faith, but when that faith requires artifacts, books, etc, I can understand the Canadian government’s position that it would be inappropriate for it to supply them; can you imagine the endless fiery debates about different translations, editions, etc? And the government has no place in the temples and churches of the nation, any more than in the bedrooms of the nation.
Muslim prisoners at Lindsay, Ontario‘s maximum security Central East Correctional Centre are going without prayer rugs and Qur’ans because the Muslim community alone among faith communities has failed to provide the prisoners with the requirements of practicing their faith. They’re in a position of doing without or improvising (like using spare sheets as prayer rugs, surely both undignified and uncomfortable). Eteraz and Umeda have issued a call for Muslims to step up and donate. Here is the original request, in an email from the Coordinator of Spiritual & Religious Care in the prison.
Greetings,
My name is Wayne Moore and I am the Coordinator of Spiritual & Religious Care at Central East Correctional Center, Lindsay Ontario. I am a Christian Minister and it is my responsibility to care for inmates of all faiths. Our department facilitates all religious material and professional religious visitors to inmates in this very large prison.
It is government policy that faith communities, (Muslim, Christian, etc.) provide appropriate religious materials for inmates who are from their faith group.
I am sorry to say that the Muslim community is the only group who does not regularly provide us with Holy Writings and other material. We give out thousands of Bibles each year as they are requested. We give out many hundreds of free Christian-based correspondence courses; for Muslims, nothing.
Through various means I have even appealed to the Council of Imams, without even an answer. We do have an Imam, Mehmet Gul, who comes when he can and has brought a few Qur’ans, which he paid for himself. I know he cannot afford this.
The Holy Month of Ramadan just ended and I am ashamed to say that most of our Muslim men did not even have a Qur’an to read during the month.
The local Masjid is well aware of the situation, in the past 3 years, (since the prison opened), they have provided us with 6 Qur’ans
Here is what we need, in order of priority:
Qur’ans: We have 40 Muslims right now who need one. About 30% can read Arabic. We have numerous requests each month from inmates who are from other religious backgrounds but would like to read the Qur’an. We could easily use 200 Qur’ans a year, a mixture of Arabic and English (translations). This prison can hold 1,200 people and the turnover is high. A lot of people come and go through this prison in one year.
Basic information about Islam: Inmate from a Muslim background, but never practiced are unable to even do the basic prayers. We need basic materials that can tell them how to perform Wudu.
Two months ago, for the first time since this prison opened 3 years ago, a person donated a box of books and pamphlets. These pamphlets included much of the basic information about Islam, The Prophet (pbuh) and Salat.
This box of books were gone within minutes and numerous Muslims were left without anything. The men who did get some material were very grateful.
Note: What we CANNOT give out in a government facility (hospitals, senior’s homes and Jails) is any material that degrades any other religion.
Video Tapes/DVD’s on Islam, The Prophet (pbuh), Salat, Zakat, Hajj, The History of Islam, Conversion process etc.
Prayer mats. We currently give out extra bed sheets to be used as a prayer mat.
Anything you can do to help us, or who we can contact would be appreciated by myself and every Muslim inmate in the prison.
Sincerely,
Wayne B. Moore
Coordinator of Spiritual & Religious Care
Central East Correctional Center
Lindsay, ON. K9V 4S6
705 328 6000 x 3058
wayne.moore at jus.gov.on.ca
del.icio.us: A Muslim call to action
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Digg it: A Muslim call to action
ma.gnolia: A Muslim call to action
Stumble it: A Muslim call to action
newsvine: A Muslim call to action
raincoaster 
Shame …….
Given your bigoted anti-Muslim remarks in other threads, I’m going to ask you what you mean by that.
This post only increases my extreme Canada-envy. I’d be shocked if there’s a prison in the U.S. that has a Coordinator of Spiritual & Religious Care and even more shocked if that person didn’t use their job to prostelytize for an evangelical church. Why is everything so much more civilized in Canadia?
Because we’re all socialists and commies up here except the prime minister. But I’d not make that particular assumption: why not check what Mumia has to say about it? I am certain if you were right he’d have said something a very long time ago.
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Figures, only you socialists and commies get along with the Muslims – hee hee.
I think there actually are religious coordinators in US prisons – lol – but that’s not why I’m Muslim, never even been in prison.
there are definitely some prisons in the US where prostelytizing is part of the curricululm. There’s some information about it at
http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_faithbased
Joan Didion wrote some about this too in “In God’s Country,” which is a really great essay. It’s frightening stuff, all couched under the heading of “faith based initiatives.”
Oh, I adore Joan Didion. You know, her stuff is very hard to find up here, for all that it’s classic American literature. Very strange.
Are those Faith-Based Initiatives based in the privately-held prisons, or in all of them? Once you associate locking up the populace with the profit motive, all kinds of abuses go on.
Some of these faith-based initiatives are definitely in taxpayer-funded prisons, but I think they’re pretty widespread. My guess is they’re only controversial at publicly funded prisons– if the prisons are private, most folks’ attitude is probably that they can use whatever programming they want.
That’s really interesting that it’s hard to find Didion up there. She is amazing– “In God’s Country” is in a great book called Political Fictions, definitely worth tracking down.
Never seen it in my life. When I get a new client I’m definitely doing a road trip to Portland to hit Powells. I love Portland!
Powells is definitely worth a look.
Re. Faith-Based Initiatives–I’m sure you’re aware the Duby ‘ministrayshun has a whole department devoted to Christian–sorry, I mean “Faith-Based” works.
I’m sure they’d love to give equal time to godless heathens–I mean persons of other faiths.
But there is, of course, some question as to whether Bush is a comitted Christianist or whether it was just a vote-getter.
That would be B.
I’ve been going to Powells since before you could read! Portland is the only American city that feels like Vancouver to me. Only a little louder, actually.
Don’t you mean “since before your parents were a glint in some matron’s eye?”
No, I didn’t go until Jimi and Janis took me.