UKLFI: Supporting Israel with legal skills

TSB disappears from IHRC website donations page

TSB bank details have disappeared from the “other ways to donate” page of the website of International Human Rights Commission  (IHRC), organiser of the annual Al Quds Day march in London which has encouraged supporters to carry Hezbollah flags.

The page had given donors the bank details of the related charity, IHRC Trust’s TSB bank account, so that they could make their donations through bank transfers.  Now a message says that the page “is being updated”.

This follows submissions made earlier this year by UKLFI to TSB pointing out that IHRC promoted was associated with antisemitism and extremism and requesting that they withdraw banking services from  IHRC Trust and IHRC.

Caroline Turner, a director of UKLFI commented: “There are many organisations that purport to be charitable but are cheerleaders for vicious terrorist organisations.  Banks should not be providing financial services to such organisations.”

IHRC consists of two entities: “Islamic Human Rights Commission Limited” a UK limited company number 04716690 and “Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust”, a UK charitable trust number 1106120.  The Charity Commission is currently investigating the relationship between the two entities.

IHRC is the main organiser of the annual Al-Quds Day march in London, which is held on the last Friday of Ramadan. It was initiated in 1979 by the Islamic Republic of Iran in support of the Palestinian cause and in opposition to Israel. The original declaration includes these words:  “Israel, the enemy of mankind, the enemy of humanity…. must realise that its masters are no longer accepted in the world and must retreat.” The Al Quds Day event has taken place annually in many locations and in the United Kingdom, where it is organised by IHRC. This year’s event will take place on Sunday, 2 June 2019 at 3pm.

IHRC encourages its supporters to “bring a Hezbollah flag to the Al Quds Day March[1]. Hezbollah flags have been a feature of the march over the years.

  • At the 2018 Al Quds Day March[2], one speaker, Shaykh Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour, said Israel should be “wiped from the map” and claimed Zionists’ “days are numbered”..

  • Nazim Ali, a director of IHRC, claimed during the 2017 Al Quds rally in London, that the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire “were murdered” by Zionists who fund the Conservative party[3] He said: “As we know in Grenfell, many innocents were murdered by Theresa May’s cronies, many of which are supporters of Zionist ideology.”

  • Speakers at the Al Quds Day rally in London on 21 August 2011[4] included Abdul Wahid[5], a representative of Hizb ut Tahrir, who called for surrounding countries to launch an all out war on Israel. Participants carried signs advocating the destruction of the State of Israel and many expressed support for the proscribed Iranian-backed terror organisation Hezballah.[6]

  • The European Commission started the procedure to terminate its association with IHRC in December 2018, after IHRC had received more than £140,000 in funds. This was as a result of the European Commission being alerted to IHRC’s antisemitism.[7]

  • In December 2018 the IHRC hosted a speaker Ramon Grosfoguel, a Puerto Rican academic, who described Zionism as a global “criminal enterprise” that seeks control of “democratic rights”.[8] Grosfoguel said the state of Israel was an “extremist organisation” that has the “audacity” to label Hamas and Hezbollah, the militant groups, as terrorist organisations and claimed that “Zionists” were “encouraging the rise of extreme right new fascist groups”.

  • The IHRC has published several posts on its website praising Omar Abdul Rahman, the extremist cleric who served a life sentence, for involvement in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing plot, and urging people to write to Oma Abdul Rahman with messages of support[9]. Upon his death in prison in 2017 he was called by the IHRC[10] “a man of principal and unshakeable faith.”

  • In 2015 the IHRC drew criticism for awarding Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, with an award for “Islamophobia” two months after 12 members of its staff were shot dead in a terror attack.[11]

  • In 2010, the IHRC provided a platform to Ibrahim Zakzaky, head of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria. Zakzaky has described Jews[12] as “the lowest of creatures on earth…sons of monkeys and pigs”.

  • In 1994,IHRC director Shadjareh spoke[13]on a platform in Trafalgar Square draped with a banner which read, ‘Death To The Enemies Of Islam’. In a briefing on the Lebanon crisis, the IHRC has called upon British Muslims to provide the terror group Hezbollah with ‘financial, logistical and informational support’

 IHRC’s Links with Iran

  • Saeid Reza Ameli, one of IHRC’s current directors, and formerly a trustee of IHRC Trust (1997-2016)[14] is an Iranian national.[15] He continues to be very closely linked with Iran.  He is a faculty member and the founder of the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran.[16]

  • On 12 June 2017, Ameli participated in a conference of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during Ramadan with many Iranian government officials.

  • On 5 September 2015, Ameli was elected to a senior position on the Iranian Supreme Council of Cyberspace for a 4-year term.[17] The Supreme Council of Cyberspace was founded in 2011 to control the online activity of its citizenry.[18] This agency is designated by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury Department based on Human Rights Abuses and Censorship in Iran, and Support to Sanctioned Weapons Proliferators.[19]

  • In 2016, the Iranian High Council for Human Rights granted IHRC’s co-founder and current director Arzu Merali[20], a human rights award at a ceremony in Tehran that was attended by Iranian government officials.[21] It is significant that a British human rights activist received an award from Iran, suggesting that the activist’s work reflects Iran’s interests.

The Henry Jackson Society produced a report on 29.5.2019 providing extensive details of the pro-terrorist and antisemitic nature of IHRC.

[1] https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/al-quds-day-organisers-tell-marchers-they-can-wave-hezbollah-flags/

[2] https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/al-quds-day-march-israel-palestine-hezbollah-1.465351

[3] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/08/outrage-islamist-claims-grenfell-tower-victims-murdered-zionists/

[4] https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/this-could-be-last-quds-day-demo-1.26849

[5] http://hurryupharry.org/2011/08/26/al-quds-day-2011-allah-will-judge-muslims-who-stayed-at-home/

[6] https://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/lauren-booth-lebanon-jordan-and-egypt-must-liberate-jerusalem/#comments

[7] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/12/15/european-commission-gave-140k-grant-organisation-accused-anti/

[8] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/22/group-awarded-140000-eu-finding-described-zionism-criminal-enterprise/

[9] https://www.ihrc.org.uk/activities/campaigns/10601-write-to-us-prisoners-this-ramadan/

https://www.ihrc.org.uk/activities/alerts/4269-alert-us-campaigners-are-requested-to-write-letters-of-support-to-sheikh-omar-abdul-rahman/

[10] https://www.ihrc.org.uk/activities/press-releases/11857-press-release-usasheikh-omar-abdul-rehman-world-has-lost-a-man-of-principle-and-unshakeable-faith/

[11] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-murdered-staff-given-islamophobe-of-the-year-award-10100317.html

[12] https://www.jpost.com/International/Islamic-Movement-preacher-to-address-London-conference

[13] https://www.spectator.co.uk/2006/08/hezbollah-cells-await-irans-orders/

[14] https://www.linkedin.com/in/saied-reza-ameli-b18a14119/

[15]https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/9KegoFo3umg5s_1ZwoG2kmRSs4I/appointments,.

[16]https://ut.ac.ir/en/page/533/faculty-members-research-interests.

[17] Tasnim news, Let’s better understand the new member of the cyber council, published on 09/14/15

[18] https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-03-07/supreme-council-cyberspace-new-online-oversight-agency-launch-iran

[19] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0250

[20] https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/04716690/officers

[21] https://en.mehrnews.com/news/118609/Muslim-activists-jointly-receive-3rd-Islamic-Human-Rights-Award