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Govt funding to Islamist-associated charities criticised

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 28 Oct 2009

A charity affiliated with a political party often threatened with being registered as a terrorist group has received more than £100,000 in government funding.

The Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, an educational charity which runs a nursery school and two primary schools in south east England, received a grant worth £113,411 from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DSCF).

The foundation is closely linked to the political party Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamist political group, with three quarters of its trustees Hizb ut-Tahrir activists or members.

The revelation has prompted outrage in the blogosphere and from shadow home secretary Chris Grayling, who has vowed to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir if the Conservatives win power.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has long been threatened with classification as a terrorist organisation but has maintained its legal status in the UK. A report due out later this week by the Centre for Social Cohesion, however, claims that while the organisation has claimed non-violence in the UK it has not been open about its true motives in the West.

One of the authors of the report, titled Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology and Strategy, Hannah Stuart told Charity News Alert that the centre had obtained the party’s central internal leadership strategy document which showed the organisation was purposefully “hiding its ideology and downplaying intolerance”.

Stuart said that researchers were “shocked” to discover that after reports a number years ago that the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation was set up by Hizb ut-Tahrir members the DCSF still approved funding.

The report found that it is part of the party’s strategy to gain more credibility in the west by associating itself with charities.

A Charity Commission spokeswoman said that the organisation is “currently assessing the issues raised" by reports about the links between the foundation and Hizb ut-Tahrir.

The political party’s website insists “the party does not work in the West to change the system of government” but that “Hizb ut-Tahrir works to develop opinion about Islam in the Western countries, as a belief, ideology and alternative for the Muslim world.”

The party is banned in many countries including, most recently, Bangladesh.

The DCSF did not reply to Charity News Alert’s requests for comment.

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