The European Commission is to end its association with the group that organises the Al Quds rally, after it emerged it received more than £140,000 in funds.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), which is based in Wembley and organises the annual march through the centre of London, has charitable status and says it campaigns “for justice for all peoples regardless of their racial, confessional or political background.”
But newspaper reports said EU funds had been signed off for the group in 2016 despite criticism for the Al Quds rally, which sees participants waving the flag of Hezbollah and demonstrators expressing antisemitic views.
The Board of Deputies is among several groups that have described the IHRC as a “disgraceful organisation”.
The EU funding for IHRC was part of a funding package worth £525,000 for a University of Leeds project called the “Counter Islamophobia Toolkit”.
A spokesman for the European Commission told the Sunday Telegraph that it was now preparing to terminate the agreement.
He said: “We are looking closely into the allegations that one of the organisations involved had expressed antisemitic views. The Commission services have launched the procedure to terminate the grant agreement with the organisation in question (IHRC).”
“We are happy that the European Commission is finally beginning to take the funding issue seriously,” Olga Deutsch, Europe desk director at the NGO Monitor think-tank told the JC.
“Islamic Human Rights Commission has for over a decade been known to be Iran-linked, and a simple Google search would have revealed this to EU officials.
“We hope this will set a precedent for regularly checking who grantees are, as we can attest to several terror-linked organisations currently enjoying EU and European funding.”
The University of Leeds said it had been asked to submit observations on the European Commission’s reasons for terminating the funding agreement.
