6

Paul Joseph Watson claims that Tommy Robinson has been moved to a prison with a predominantly Muslim population.

BREAKING: Tommy Robinson has reportedly been moved to a prison with a 71% Muslim population.

Inmates were banging on cell walls last night shouting death threats.

Protests were ignored. Tommy now fears for his safety,

Full info coming up on live show @ http://infowars.com

—Paul Joseph Watson, on Twitter at 10:22 AM - 13 Jun 2018

He later clarified that he meant the prison wing Tommy Robinson was being held.

Clarification that Muslim population is estimated to be around 70% on wing in which Tommy is being held, not entire prison.

—Paul Joseph Watson, on Twitter at 2:43 PM - 13 Jun 2018

The related InfoWars article heavily implies this was done on purpose.

  1. Was Tommy Robinson moved to a different prison?
  2. Does the wing of the prison where he was moved have a 70% Muslim population?
Improve this question
5
  • I found a pdf claims sources from "MoJ, Offender Management Statistics Quarterly, July to September 2016, 26 January 2017; NOMIS, Census 2011" (no time to check, sorry) But seems muslins prision pop doubled from 2002 to 2016 and the numbers for December 2016 are Total: 100%=84.307, muslins: 15.2%=12.825. Even putting all muslins in a wing seems unlikely to reach 70%. Something like it can be sure crticied as racist not to say mixing offender from minor crimes and violent crimes is not advisable.
    – jean
    Jun 14, 2018 at 11:19
  • 1
    To be clear: The widely retweeted claim was "it is estimated". The clarification was that we are only talking about one wing, with a reference to a tweet that clarified the source was Tommy Robinson's estimate based on appearance. So the only remaining question seems to be "Was Tommy Robinson's (alleged) estimate of 70% Muslim population of that one wing accurate?"
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Jun 14, 2018 at 11:49
  • 3
    I don't think the people in charge of Her Majesty's Prisons have that good a sense of humour, sadly.
    – GordonM
    Jun 14, 2018 at 13:58
  • 13
    Honestly I think the best policy with info wars articles is to default them all as 100% wrong, unless there is real proof of them being correct. News in North Korea are more reliable.
    – Etaila
    Jun 15, 2018 at 12:04
  • 1
    @Etaila Never hear of them before so I was checking for a few minutes and I starting to agree with you
    – jean
    Jun 15, 2018 at 17:49

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
26

If Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) was moved to HMP Leicester, the claim that he is in a prison with 70% Muslim population is incorrect. The claim that he is being housed in a wing with 70% Muslim population is doubtful.

From justice.gov.uk, the reported capacity of the prison is 408 prisoners. I was able to find an inspection report on the prison from 2015 at which time they held 325 adult males, and claimed the operational capacity to be 411. They also state this on page 32 of the report:

2.25 A third of the population were from a black or minority ethnic background and 13% were Muslim

On page 81 they have a table that breaks down religion into age groups, and shows that there were 41 prisoners of Muslim faith 21 and over. In contrast, the preceding page shows that 67.7% of the prisoners housed there are White British males.

Unless there have been significant incarceration of Muslims at the prison since 2015 as well as parole or release of a significant portion of the prisoners housed there since, there is nowhere near 70% Muslim population at the prison currently. It is probably impossible to find a per-wing demographic layout of the prison, but given the numbers are so far apart I would be highly skeptical of the second claim.

It is also possible that a Muslim outreach program at the prison has been quite successful at converting some of the non-Muslim inmates to the doctrine since this report was released, but there's nothing I've found that would support that contention, either.

Improve this answer
5

Was Tommy Robinson moved to a different prison?

I haven't found any source other than Infowars/Robinson's spokeperson. There are some youtube channels claiming he was moved to HMP Leicester, but I haven't found any sources).

Does the wing of the prison where he was moved have a 70% Muslim population?

Coalan Robertson, who is the source of the article and Robinson's spokeperson, clarified that "Tommy said it looked around 70% Muslim on his wing.". That's literally the only source.

Improve this answer
5
  • 3
    This is essentially repeating the claim; not an answer IMO.
    – user22865
    Jun 14, 2018 at 8:16
  • 16
    If anything the source is weaker than the stated claim, as it seems to state that Robinson only thought it LOOKED 70% Muslim... I get the feeling that perceiving a a majority Muslim environment is almost second nature to him.
    – Fifth_H0r5eman
    Jun 14, 2018 at 8:37
  • 3
    @JanDoggen No reliable sources are reporting on this, so I think following the given sources to the original source is reasonable. The original source is Robertson, who says that the claim is based on Robinsons personal perception (ie there are no sources for the claim). Unless reliable sources pick up this story, that's probably the best we are going to get.
    – tim ♦
    Jun 14, 2018 at 9:17
  • I think we are all agreed the original source for the claim is Tommy Robinson's rough estimate. But isn't Robinson's accuracy that is the question?
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Jun 14, 2018 at 11:51
  • 5
    This combined with Jeff Lambert's answer seems to resolve the question: there's good reason to think the real figure is around 10-20%, and the only support offered for the 70% figure is admitted to be a guess from a clearly biased source.
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Jun 14, 2018 at 12:26
-5

I have looked at two of the reported prisons including Leicester - and the 'Muslim' inmates are around 14-15%.

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/02/Leicester-Web-2015.pdf

Improve this answer
0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .