美国国家公共电台 NPR Inside French Prisons, A Struggle To Combat Radicalization

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

We now get a rare look inside a French prison. Officials in France say prisons have become incubators of extremism. Many of the homegrown terrorists who've launched attacks in places like Paris and Brussels recently were radicalized while incarcerated², often while serving jail terms that had nothing to do with terrorism at all. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.

ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE³: I'm escorted into Fresnes, one of the largest prisons in Europe, about 20 miles south of Paris. Like most French prisons, Fresnes is overcrowded. There are often three prisoners to tiny cells built for one plus bed bugs⁴ and rats.

(SOUNDBITE OF CATCALLS)

BEARDSLEY: Inmates⁵ yell out curses and cat calls from behind their barred windows as I visit a small, empty sports-yard ensconced between the cellblocks. There are plastic bags and punctured⁶ soccer balls caught in the surrounding concertina wire. Inmates here yelled out this way in November 2015, refusing to honor a minute of silence for the victims of the terrorist attacks on Paris cafes and the Bataclan Concert Hall. Fresnes prison director Philippe Obligis says he began to see a radicalization problem well before those attacks.

PHILIPPE OBLIGIS: (Through interpreter) There were some radical¹ Muslims who were putting huge pressure on regular Muslims to adopt a certain behavior like taking a shower with clothes on and not listening to music or watching TV.

BEARDSLEY: In 2014, Fresnes became the first French prison to separate suspected radicalized inmates from the general prison population. After the major terrorist attacks of 2015, some other prisons did the same thing. Some of those terrorists who had targeted journalists at satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, shoppers at a kosher supermarket and concert-goers in Paris had gone into prison as regular criminals and come out radicalized.

The French government even put money into rehabilitation⁷ in the radicalized units, counseling and workshops for those deemed not too far gone. Businessman Pierre Botton went to jail in the 1990s and now runs an organization devoted⁸ to improving the lives of prisoners. He thinks radicals⁹ should be separated in different prisons entirely¹⁰ because they'll inevitably¹¹ interact. Botton notes what happened when the only surviving terrorist from the Bataclan attacks, Salah Abdeslam arrived in a prison last year.

PIERRE BOTTON: When Salah Abdeslam arrives, they clap. You understand what I say? When he arrives into jail, they applaud.

BEARDSLEY: Botton says guys like Abdeslam are icons¹² in Paris-region jails, where up to 70 percent of inmates identify as Muslim. He switches to French.

BOTTON: (Through interpreter) So when you put guys like this who represent a certain ideology¹³ in the heart of a prison surrounded by 4,000 inmates, there's a huge risk they'll contaminate the others.

BEARDSLEY: Yannis Warrach serves as an imam at another top-security prison in Normandy. He says having radicals alongside regular prisoners is a big problem. But grouping them all together is, too. For him, there are no easy answers. Prison is so brutal¹⁴, inmates can only survive if they're part of a gang. Warrach sees how the radicals prey¹⁵ on newcomers.

YANNIS WARRACH: (Through interpreter) The ones who preach and proselytize¹⁶ will at first be nice to a detainee. They see his desperation. They'll befriend him, give them what he needs. Then they'll say it's destiny. They'll say that God has a mission for him. And, little by little, they brainwash him, telling him French society has rejected him. He can't get a job because of his Arab name, and he was always put in the worst class at school. The problem is this is often true.

BEARDSLEY: Warrach says another big problem is the prevalence in prison of hardline Salafist reading material that he says discourages Muslims from integrating in their own countries.

WARRACH: (Through interpreter) The prisoners I counsel have a lot of questions about Islam because they don't know much. I try to debunk¹⁷ this extremist literature and give them another narrative¹⁸ entirely.

BEARDSLEY: But Warrach says the radicals consider him an agent of the French state. So he has to meet secretly and hide his sessions with the inmates who so desperately¹⁹ want his help. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.

1 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

2 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 bugs   

adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误

参考例句：

• All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 inmates   

n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• One of the inmates has escaped. 被收容的人中有一个逃跑了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The inmates were moved to an undisclosed location. 监狱里的囚犯被转移到一个秘密处所。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 punctured   

v.在（某物）上穿孔( puncture的过去式和过去分词 )；刺穿（某物）；削弱（某人的傲气、信心等）；泄某人的气

参考例句：

• Some glass on the road punctured my new tyre. 路上的玻璃刺破了我的新轮胎。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A nail on the road punctured the tyre. 路上的钉子把车胎戳穿了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 rehabilitation   

n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位

参考例句：

• He's booked himself into a rehabilitation clinic.他自己联系了一家康复诊所。
• No one can really make me rehabilitation of injuries.已经没有人可以真正令我的伤康复了。

8 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

9 radicals   

n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals. 一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The worry is that the radicals will grow more intransigent. 现在人们担忧激进分子会变得更加不妥协。 来自辞典例句

10 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

11 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

12 icons   

n.偶像( icon的名词复数 )；（计算机屏幕上表示命令、程序的）符号，图像

参考例句：

• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons. 用图标来区分重要的文本项。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Daemonic icons should only be employed persistently if they provide continuous, useful status information. 只有会连续地提供有用状态信息的情况下，后台应用程序才应该一直使用图标。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

13 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。

14 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

15 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

16 proselytize   

v.改变宗教

参考例句：

• I assured him we didn't come here to proselytize.我向他保证我们并不是来改变他的信仰的。
• Christians were arrested for trying to convert people,to proselytise them.基督徒因为试图改变他人信仰而被捕。

17 debunk   

v.揭穿真相，暴露

参考例句：

• let's debunk some of the most common falsehoods.让我们来揭穿一些最常见的谬误吧。
• Sequences of maps can also debunk misconceptions.一系列的地图，也有助于厘清错误概念。

18 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

19 desperately   

adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地

参考例句：

• He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
• He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。