The Charity Commission has warned a charity that runs a mosque in Cardiff, after it shared a video on Facebook that the regulator said could be seen as implicitly supporting terrorism.
A statutory inquiry by the commission, which became aware of the social media post in January 2024, nearly three months after it was published, has found misconduct and/or mismanagement by trustees in the administration of the Al-Manar Centre Trust.
The video, narrated in Arabic, includes footage of two female Israeli hostages being released following the attack on the country on 7 October 2023, and shows Hamas’ military wing training and “parading with firearms”.
The commission took the view that the footage “could be interpreted as extremist content, as it presented a positive image of Hamas, attempted to downplay and/or justify its terrorist attack against Israel, and/ or was supportive of or glorified terrorism”.
Its investigation found the Al-Manar Centre Trust had failed to implement adequate social media controls, despite previous regulatory engagement in 2014.
“Our inquiry concluded that the conduct of trustees fell below standards expected of them,” said Joshua Farbridge, head of compliance visits and inspections at the commission.
“Inadequate controls led to the sharing of harmful content, and there is no excuse for failing to properly review content before it is shared by a charity.”
Besides the official warning, the regulator ordered the charity’s trustees to take action on its use of its website and social media, including reviewing all material previously published.
Lack of oversight by chair
After the commission notified the Al-Manar Centre Trust that it was opening a compliance case, the charity conducted its own review via a third party, which found its chair had been aware of the video.
Other trustees were unaware that the content, which has since been taken down and is no longer available on YouTube, had been shared.
The chair said he had listened to the video – which had no connection to the Al-Manar Centre Trust – while driving home after a busy day, rather than watching it in full, and apologised for his oversight.
The third-party review concluded segments of the video could be misconstrued as endorsing violence and promoting a proscribed organisation, the commission’s report said, and that inadequate vetting had led to it being shared.
The commission recommended the charity implement a new and more comprehensive social media policy.
Responding to questions from the commission, trustees said the video’s intent was to highlight topics such as the history of the Holy Lands and Islamic principles governing moral conduct in warfare.
Trustees told the commission local communities were, at a time when Israel had killed civilians in Gaza, “profoundly affected” by events in the occupied Palestinian territories.
They “unequivocally condemned” exploitation of events in the Middle East to foster hatred and division.
Nonetheless, the regulator opened a statutory inquiry in February 2024. It said the Al-Manar Centre Trust’s statements “did not negate the fact that parts of the video could be interpreted as justifying or downplaying a terrorist attack in Israel resulting in mass casualties”.
Inadequate social media policy
The commission was unable to discover how the video had come to the attention of the chair, who was advised by a solicitor not to provide an answer. But it found the content had been shared “without oversight or proper controls”.
The regulator’s report added that trustees did not appear to have been sufficiently aware of its guidance on responsible social media use.
It found that while the chair was solely responsible for sharing the content, there was a “collective failure” around management and administration.
It also found the charity’s social media policy – a single flowchart – failed to provide clear guidance and did not include provisions for risk assessment, oversight, or record-keeping.
The commission added that an aggravating factor was its previous involvement with the Al-Manar Centre Trust. In 2014, it provided guidance “that trustees must ensure their charity’s activities do not promote violence, racial or religious hatred, or encourage or glorify terrorism, or incite criminal acts or public order offences”.
While social media was not the main focus of that engagement, the commission noted then that limited monitoring of third-party content on social channels “left the charity vulnerable to reputational risk”.
Al-Manar Centre Trust: ‘Genuine human error’
A spokesperson for the Al-Manar Centre Trust said the charity “acknowledges the Charity Commission’s report regarding a social media incident from November 2023”.
“This incident resulted from a genuine human error, which has since been addressed through new policies and training,” they said.
“At no point was there any intention by the charity or its trustees to promote or glorify any proscribed organisation.
“The trustees have cooperated fully with the inquiry and remain committed to good governance and serving the community.”
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