£1m charity cash for group linked to Iran
A HUMAN rights organisation has received more than £1million in charity funds despite being run by self-declared Islamist revolutionaries closely aligned to Iran who say that the West is “the enemy” and Britain a “Stasi state”.
According to an investigation by The Times newspaper, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), which is supported by Jeremy Corbyn, speaks of “apartheid London”, labels anti-terrorism laws a “war on Muslims” and condemns English as a “colonial language that will always subjugate you”.
The London-based group, given £1.2 million since 2013 by a charity that received £250,000 from the taxpayer via Gift Aid, claims to fight for the oppressed “whosoever they are and whomsoever oppresses them”.
No affiliation to Iran is mentioned on the website of IHRC, which was founded in London in 1997.
IHRC has condemned more than 50 countries for alleged mistreatment of Muslims. Its targets are Britain, the US, Israel and Islamic nations that have poor relations with Iran.
It has been accused of hypocrisy by a leading Iranian campaigner who said the group acted as a propaganda tool for Tehran. The group has no history of offering support to women’s rights activists or religious minorities in Iran.
In an interview before he became the Labour Party leader, Mr Corbyn said that IHRC “represents all that’s best in Islam concerning the rights of individuals to free expression”.
IHRC is primarily funded by the British charity IHRC Trust, which is run out of the same London address.
The Charity Commission recently concluded a two-year investigation into the relationship between IHRC and the trust but did not order changes.
Emma Fox, of the Henry Jackson Society, which published a report on IHRC this year, said that “cheerleading for Iran’s ayatollahs” was not a charitable objective.
A Labour spokesman said Mr Corbyn was “a long-standing campaigner for human rights … including in Iran” but did not respond when asked whether he stood by his praise of IHRC.
An IHRC spokesman said: “Trying to align us to any country based on the ethnicity of any of our staff … or volunteers is essentially a racist enterprise.”