ILDC Chaplaincy Coordinator spoke on November 8, 2007 at a seminar addressing the issue of Terrorism, organized by Fundacion Jose Ortega Y Gasset in collaboration with the Embassy of the United States, Madrid, Spain. The 6th Annual Seminar on Terrorism Studies, entitled “How to Prevent Violent Radicalization among Muslims?” asked Chaplain Bilal to address the question “How to Prevent Violent Radicalization in prisons”, as part of a series of seminars on the question of Terrorism organized throughout the conference.

The seminar was attended by educationists, university students, and members of the media, law enforcement community and senior governmental official of both US and Spain. The panelist and speakers included, along with Bilal Ansari, Virgilio Valero, Deputy Director General for Prison Management, Ministry of the Interior, Farah Pandith, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, US Department of State and Eduardo Aguirre, Ambassador of the United States of America to Spain.

Chaplain Ansari pointed out that radicalization in prisons occurs only in the absence of unprofessional academically educated chaplains and imams; moreover it happens in prison environments where inmates are the defacto religious authorities in prisons, as it empowers the radical elements among Muslims in prisons to perpetuate extreme and warped views between western and Muslim worldviews. Violent radicals, he emphasized are empowered only in the absence of organized trained chaplain within prisons that work to transform or neutralize Muslim extremists and indeed educate against radical rhetoric.

Chaplain Ansari further stressed the inherent danger in the lack of governmental standards that assures professional level of discourse of both the indigenous Spanish Muslim community and the Muslims volunteers at large within prisons are academically certified, or it will undermine both the capacity to self police Muslims communities and the credibility of the profession and long term interests of the Spanish government.

Qualified chaplains are keen to avert the radicalization of violent prisoners through balanced understanding of Islam, and oppositely, he stressed, without chaplains on prison staff all efforts to prevent violent radicalization will be undermined by insufficient efforts that run amiss of effectively dealing with extremism and terrorism.