Only seen this story `12 months after it broke. Don't recall mention elsewhere.

Handwritten letters threatening petrol bomb attacks and mass stabbings have been sent to 15 churches in the UK in the past two months.

“Stop all your services straight away”, said one letter sent to a church in Sheffield, South Yorkshire “if you don’t your church will be petrol bombed while in service. Continue behind closed doors and your congregation members will be stabbed one by one. Blood on your hands. You have been warned.”

https://barnabasfund.org/en/news/fifteen-uk-churches-told-to-stop-services-in-anonymous-letters-threatening-attacks

An article from The Times - a bit of a long read but frightening!
It has to be addressed though as the problem continues to spiral out of control :-

Pity the prison officers of this country. Suffocated by Spice fumes, sworn at, spat at, assaulted. Last week at HMP Whitemoor five were taken to hospital after an attack by two inmates. Opening the cells on Thursday morning, an officer was set upon by men wearing fake suicide belts and wielding bladed weapons, slashing him in the face and shouting Allahu akbar. One of the attackers has been named as Brusthom Ziamani, jailed in 2015 for plotting to behead an army cadet. The incident confirmed what many have been warning for years: Islamic extremism is growing in Britain’s prisons, with staff too stretched to cope, minds being poisoned and the seeds of future terror attacks being sown.

Could there be a more perfect environment for violent Islamism to flourish? Take a load of no-hope young men, prone to rages, longing for purpose. Mix them with those selling promises of battles, adrenaline and virgins in heaven. Leave them to fester in savage, dirty and understaffed jails. Marinade them in months and years of time to kill. Add threats of violence if you don’t comply and convert.

One sentence in the Times report on the Whitemoor incident captures how out of control things have become. While Ziamani resided at HMP Woodhill he “ran Sharia courts, dominated a small group of extremist inmates and patrolled his block to make sure that no Muslims were breaking the Ramadan fast”. Last month an investigation by this paper showed how ruthless extremists such as Ziamani controlled other inmates at Woodhill. Prisoners found to have committed the “sin” of drinking alcohol were beaten savagely. Inmates were lectured on how the Queen was “an enemy of Islam who should be fought to the death”.

How on earth is all this allowed to happen in the “high-security” heart of our criminal justice system? Part of the answer is the threadbare state of Britain’s prisons. I am no “all cuts are evil” commentator but it is hard to describe the effect of the retrenchment of the past decade as anything but disastrous. Between 2010 and 2015 nearly a quarter of the budget was cut. Many prisons are now woefully overcrowded, understaffed and drug-riddled.

This is the context but it is not the full answer to the question of why Islamic extremism in prisons has been allowed to grow so dangerously. In 2015, then justice secretary Michael Gove asked the former prison governor Ian Acheson to conduct a no-holds-barred review into the issue. Acheson responded with several sensible recommendations, but while these were well received, the implementation has been patchy.


Take the recommendation to contain “known extremists within dedicated specialist units”. This is the great dilemma when dealing with extremist inmates: to concentrate or disperse? Scatter them among the prison population and their poisonous ideas are spread; concentrate them and you may be accused of creating British Guantanamo Bays that rally more young men to the cause. Acheson’s assessment was that it would be better to isolate these prisoners. Separation units were duly set up in three prisons in 2017, but the centres have been underused, with one closing in December because it was empty. This unit — deemed unnecessary — was in Woodhill.

Overall, Acheson has said there is little sign of “any tangible progress” since his report. Why? Cuts? Ineptitude? Yes, yes. But something else is at work: what may be called cultural sensitivity or, in plainer language, the sheer terror of being accused of racism and Islamophobia.

Giving evidence to the justice select committee, Acheson said staff perceived that if they challenged “behaviour that was blatantly and floridly anti-British or anti-democratic, they would be accused of racism”. One prison officer using the pseudonym the Secret Warder has written: “I have lost count of the number of times I have been called a kafir — the Muslim word for unbeliever. Others have taunted me over Islamic State atrocities . . . You bite your lip. Otherwise, you could end up on a charge.”

The terror of being tarred racist goes to the very top. Another of Acheson’s recommendations was for Friday prayers to be carried out in prisoners’ cells rather than communally. Though the logic of this is obvious — don’t invite groups of dangerous men to congregate — the MoJ rejected it, declaring “we do not . . . believe it is the right course of action at present to alter the provision of worship”. A prison source put it candidly: “It would become an issue of us attacking religion.” Once again, cultural sensitivity trumped what is sensible.

And what has happened since? Last week the independent monitoring board for Wormwood Scrubs reported a surge in attacks linked to Friday prayers, highlighting “a sustained increase in violence” that began with “an incident in which Muslim prisoners had been able to take weapons to a fight which had been arranged to take place at Eid celebrations”. Wormwood Scrubs has a capacity of 1,279 inmates, of which about a third are Muslim. We lay people might suggest that any event in a prison which could involve a third of prisoners is a bad idea, yet ministers did not wish to upset the race and religion applecart.

For a classic example of such squeamishness see the statement released by the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the Whitemoor attack. Confirming that anti-terrorism police were investigating, the Met added “we must stress that at this early stage of the investigation we are keeping an open mind with regards to any motives”. The attacker was shouting Allahu akbar. What do they think motivated it, anger about the temperature of the porridge?

It is a very good thing that the government has pledged to recruit 20,000 more police officers and spend billions on upgrading prisons. Hopefully this will help to restore the order that must be the foundation of any penal reforms. But all the extra resources won’t make a difference without courage. The government must have the courage to ask uncomfortable questions, such as why the proportion of Muslim prisoners is so high. Ministers must have the courage to do difficult things: disallowing the congregation of offenders, for instance. Those running prisons day-to-day must be emboldened to punish thuggery whatever religion it claims to represent. Collectively, the criminal justice system must have the courage not to be cowed by every accusation of racism or Islamophobia.

As Acheson has warned: “On the present trajectory, it is all too conceivable that a future terrorist will have been groomed and radicalised within our prison estate.” The attack at Whitemoor can be read as a warning of worse to come — and it must be heeded.

detraveler   you know full well the treatment of young women of the book is covered in said book

in fact any women not belonging to the tribe

geordie1956 - very frightening !

Geordies news , and Thats the fookers that are Locked up, many as bad ruling enclaves nationwide .

Ex copper on the radio,said throwing a bacon sandwich at a Mosque counts as right wing terrorism,what would you be more scared of being knifed to death ,blown up,run down by a car,van,lorry ,shot or having a bacon sandwich thrown at you.Stats lie

"Ex-copper on the radio said throwing a bacon at a Mosque counts as right wing terrorism..."

Does that apply to vegetarians and vegans too? I think the ex-copper was trying to be "noticed", and to try and solicit more media work exploiting the present "Brexit" climate. A comment like that can only fuel or misrepresent what terrorism actually is.

To me terrorism means the unlawful taking of lives or murdering innocent bystanders/citizens of a country eg by knifing, shooting (firearms), mowing down (with a vehicle), bombing (incendiary/body vest), blowing-up (of airliner), chemical (Russia/Salisbury), etc; throwing a bacon sandwich at a Mosque cannot be taken (seriously) as terrorism - a disrespect to Islam, yes, terrorism certainly not.

It would help if the West would stop attacking the Middle East...a lot of these guys come from there, and a lot of Muslims sympathize
with them.
So no more attacks on Iran please.

I do not regard sex offences as anything other than depraved...these are not political statements.

Let them return there if they don't like it here UBLE/REGY

What you are saying is already called murder. Renaming it terrorism changes nothing. There is already a definition of terrorism, maybe you can try adding stuff to it to include the kinds of crimes you've mentioned but the way you've put it is ridiculous. You've just conveniently taken a bunch of crimes that are in fashion and decided to call them terrorism. Where do you draw the line between a car crash and a mowing down?

I think the bacon lad who got 15 years must have been up to some other shet too, probably member of a banned organisation. You can't possibly get 15 years for a hate crime. If a justice system can send you to prison for 15 years for a crime like that, then why would you bother defining terrorism for such a system?

A vast majority of killings in the Middle East are committed by Islams in the name of Islam and sanctioned by Islam . Nothings gonna change on that score .

Are you referring to Russia Blue ? What western countries are killing people in the Middle east ???

At the moment we seem to be out...although a missile was launched at Iran

I would like us to stay out for good...including IRAN

That way more Arab Muslims get to stay alive and uninjured

I give us a small tick for dealing with ISIS, I must be fair, although I do wonder where all their funding came from..hmmm