Source: The Associated Press
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/02/europe/EU-France-Prison-Radicals.php
Security officials from several European countries have developed a manual to help prison authorities prevent their jailhouses from becoming incubators for Muslim extremists.
The manual, developed by France, Germany and Austria, includes signs that may indicate that a prisoner was becoming radicalized, including the presence of a growing beard. A prison group feared the manual could stigmatize Muslim inmates.
The document was distributed at a two-day closed-door conference of European security experts that ended Wednesday. It will be given to prison personnel.
Prisons "can be a facilitator and an accelerator" of radicalization and inmates are often "strongly destabilized" and therefore malleable, said Christophe Chaboud, head of France's Anti-Terrorist Coordination Unit.
"It is not a question of religion but of confrontation with the West," Chaboud said in a telephone interview.