BIC wants the state to pay the imams legalizing in prisons

Imams who legalise in Kosovo's prisons against radicalism are not being paid have announced the Islamic Community's headship (BIK), Sabri Baygora in a proposal for Online Economy.

On May 11th of this year, the Justice Ministry (MD) and BIK have signed memorandums of co-operation in which they are expected to legalise for prisoners.

However, the memorandum did not set aside the payment of these imams, which according to the headship Bajgora, they should even have a fee as a stimulus for the work they are doing.

The memorandum we signed with the Justice Minister at the moment is voluntary and free of charge, but it doesn't mean that in the future it's supposed not to be stimulated in a form because it's an extremely important task, although it's human in its own nucleus, but at the time we're living it's hard to stimulate people to be part of this volunteer program for a long time.

So I believe that even our country will find the way and the imam will stimulate them in the form of payment because of the weight of responsibility they have”.

He said that 20 imams were engaged in five prisons in holding lectures until he stressed that these speeches are for all categories of convicts.

We've started with 5-6 Kosovo prisons and at the moment it's going well. We started in Dubrava in Mitrovica, in Gjilan in Lipjan and finally in the high security prison in Gerdovc. At the moment there are about 20 yards between them and 2 Islamic studies professors who are dealing with minors and women in Lipjani Prison”.

There's been a belief in the opinion that these speeches will mainly be for those who have been convicted of radicalism or religious extremism, which is not true because this is just a small segment of this while 95% of legalism is dedicated to other prisoners outside this field”.

Bigora has indicated that this project does not have a specific deadline for when it will end, until it added that such a memorandum is expected to be signed with other religious communities.

This project doesn't have any time definition, it'll go on as long as it's of interest to the prisoners and we're trying to achieve a suitable modus even for the immunes as well as for the prisoners what lessons and what sermons are willing to do”.

A memorandum like this is made only with BIK, but in conversation with the minister is talked about having talks in the near future with other religious communities that they too have an approach to prisoners belonging to other religions in Kosovo”.