UK media is reporting that two Islamic charities have lost their grants after the government claimed they had links with Islamist extremism. According to the BBC report, one of those charities is the Muslim Charities Forum (MCF), a group close to the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas in the UK:
Muslim Charities Forum
Both Islamic Help and the [Muslim Charities Forum] had received the money through the Faith Minorities in Action project, which was set up by the DCLG in March last year.
The scheme, established in conjunction with the Extremism Task Force, was designed to encourage integration by promoting interfaith work, the role of women in faith, tackling youth crime and to provide child protection training.
‘Best practice’ The Muslim Charities Forum was awarded the contract to implement the scheme, which included running workshops to ‘share experiences and best practice on addressing a wide variety of social and community issues’.
Mr Pickles said the MCF had not been meeting objectives and was unable to reassure him that the body was sufficiently rigorous over its members’ activities.
The MCF said it was unaware of any perceived failings, and that it had not been contacted by the DCLG about the decision to stop the cash.
A spokesman for the forum said: ‘We will continue to foster cooperation and positive relationships between Muslim charities and other faith and community groups.
The GMBDW discussed the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas ties of the MCF when we reported in December 2012 that the MCF had been seeking “unfettered access” to distribute aid in Gaza. At that time we noted that four of the MCF charities were known to have been associated with the Union of Good (UOG), a worldwide charity coalition raising funds for Hamas and headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi. These charities were:
In September, we reported that a UK government department had donated funds to the MCF and in October we reported that the MCF had criticised an article linking the umbrella organization to Hamas fundraising.
