A UK journalist has commented on the recent decision by UK charity regulators that links between the charity known as Muslim Aid and terrorists are unsubstantiated. The commentary begins:
The Charity Commission, Britain’s most ineffective regulator, has once again whitewashed an organisation linked to fundamentalist Islam. In March this newspaper reported on allegations that the charity Muslim Aid, a close associate of the fundamentalist Islamic Forum of Europe, had channelled funds to eight organisations linked to the terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Muslim Aid has admitted funding two of the organisations and has repeatedly refused to deny funding the other six. Now, however, the Commission has published what it is pleased to call a “regulatory case review” into the charity saying that allegations of terrorist links are “unsubstantiated.” It has only been able to reach this verdict by completely ignoring the vast majority of the allegations made against Muslim Aid, and by redefining the single allegation it did choose to “investigate” in a way which allowed it to exonerate the charity. By its own admission, it did not even investigate seven out of the eight allegations which it now claims are “unsubstantiated.”
Read the rest here.
Muslim Aid is a member of the Union of Good, a charity coalition headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi and described in a NEFA Foundation report as:
The Union of Good is a coalition of Islamic charities that provides financial support to both the Hamas “social” infrastructure, as well as its terrorist activities. It is headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, and most of the trustees and member organizations are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. The Union of Good was banned by Israel in 2002 and was recently designated a terrorist entity by the United States, although neither Youssef Qaradawi nor any of the Trustees were similarly designated. Despite the fact that action has been taken against some of its member organizations in Europe, many of its other European member organizations continue to operate. Further, the Union of Good itself does not appear to be under investigation in Europe.
Another NEFA report discusses the four U.K. Union of Good charities in detail, including Muslim Aid, stating:
As with the UG itself, the U.K. member organizations, their donors, and their leaders are often associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood and are themselves frequently inter-related, sometimes sharing Trustees, banks, and in some cases, using each other to deliver aid and/or donating to each other. The U.K. member organizations appear to also deliver aid in a similar manner, donating to “partner” organizations in the Palestinian Territories, many of which are associated with Hamas and who are responsible for use of the aid money. It is often difficult to understand how the UG member charity money is actually used, as funded projects are described in only general terms.
The NEFA report reviews the evidence at that time linking Muslim Aid to terrorism.