BERLIN, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Almost 300 radical Islamists are currently detained in German prisons, a report published on Wednesday by the "Funke" media group shows.
The "Funke" media group bases the assertion on a survey which it conducted among Germany's regional ministries of justice. The largest number of Islamists were found in jails in Hesse, Bavaria, North-Rhine Westphalia and Berlin, according to their responses.
In Bavaria alone there were 55 prisoners with "Islamist associations", some of which were classified as violent. Some 30 further individuals were detained on suspicion of being violent religious extremists. North-Rhine Westphalia counted 46 Islamists in custody, compared to 42 in Berlin and 12 in Hamburg.
There was strong regional variation across Germany, with the number of imprisoned Islamists being much lower in the East than the West of the country. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia were the only states which indicated having no adherents of radical Islam in their prisons.
The official responses to the survey highlighted a range of grounds on which imprisoned Islamists had been detained, not all of which were related to religious extremism or terrorist charges. Some individuals were remanded in custody on suspicion of Islamist activities, while others were already convicted as Islamists. However, there was also a group of detainees which had merely showcased their "sympathy" for religious extremist views while being arrested for drug-related offenses or other crimes such as committing bodily-harm and theft.
The majority of justice ministries said they ensured that Islamists were held separately from other extremists to prevent a "mutual strengthening of radical tendencies". Staff in detention centers received special training in order to equip them to deal with religious extremists, while Muslim clerics were available to provide pastoral care to prisoners in states such as Hamburg, Hesse and Bavaria.
Recent reports suggest that there are more than 350 outstanding arrest warrants against suspected Islamists in Germany, sparking a public debate on the subject. Authorities have voiced concerns over the difficulties they experience in trying to arrest Islamists who appear to have left the country or whose place of residence is unknown.
