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Obama Bans Pork in All Federal Prisons, CAIR Praises Decision

Photo Courtesy Of Washington Post

Photo Courtesy Of Washington Post

The federal Bureau of Prisons, a subdivision of President Barack Obama’s Justice Department, has banished all pork products from the menus in all federal prisons, according to a report in the Washington Post.

The government says it made the decision to do this because a survey showed that inmates do not like eating pork products.

The Council on American-Islamic relations said “we welcome” the move by the government to deny pork to prisoners, but warned that it might spark “Islamophobia.”

Here are excerpts from the report by the Post:

“The nation’s pork producers are in an uproar after the federal government abruptly removed bacon, pork chops, pork links, ham and all other pig products from the national menu for 206,000 federal inmates.

“The ban started with the new fiscal year last week.

“The Bureau of Prisons, which is responsible for running 122 federal penitentiaries and feeding their inmates three meals a day, said the decision was based on a survey of prisoners’ food preferences:

“They just don’t like the taste of pork….

“The National Pork Producers Council isn’t buying it. ‘I find it hard to believe that a survey would have found a majority of any population saying, ‘No thanks, I don’t want any bacon,’” said Dave Warner, a spokesman for the Washington-based trade association, which represents the nation’s hog farmers.

CAIR told the Post that banning pork in federal prisons would accommodate Muslim prisoners:

 “’In general we welcome the change because it’s facilitating the accommodation of Muslim inmates,’ said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil rights advocacy group. “We hope it’s not an indication of an increasing number of Muslims in the prison system.’”