Mosque warned by charity regulator after ‘encouraging support’ for Hamas

One post had provided information on “what to do if arrested at a protest”, advertising the services of a particular firm of solicitors.

A second post featured a “graphic cartoon which seemed to criticise media reporting” of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. In a third post, a cartoon suggested “the media misrepresents the situation in Palestine”, the commission said.

Both cartoons were shared by the charity three days after the attack on Israel on October 7. The commission “considered that the sharing of these cartoons could create community tensions in the context of the conflict in the Middle East”.

The regulator concluded that “the posts were outside the charity’s purposes, and that two were divisive and inflammatory”.

Its warning set out actions the mosque is expected to take including having a social media policy. The commission acknowledged that since being notified that the charity was to receive a warning, the trustees had “taken steps to address the concerns”.

In the case of the MICB, the commission determined that four out of five speeches given at its premises in November and December 2023 included “inflammatory and divisive content”.

Two of these, it said, “contained content that could reasonably be interpreted as encouraging support of Hamas, a proscribed organisation, and one could be reasonably interpreted as discouraging worshippers from engaging with democratic processes”.

The charity’s trustees “did not have effective policies in place to manage risks related to speakers at the charity” or “demonstrate that they fully understood the risk of reputational harm being caused by the sermon and were unable to offer adequate assurance that they would take action to prevent a similar failure in the future.”

Stephen Roake, the commission’s assistant director for investigations and Compliance, said: “We recognise that recent events in the Middle East are emotive and distressing. But it is precisely in times of conflict that charities are expected to bring people together, not to stoke further division.”

He added: “Sadly, in the case of these two charities, the trustees failed to have appropriate processes in place, and allowed their charity’s names and reputations to be exposed to serious harm through inflammatory and divisive language, and in one case, seeming to associate the charity with a proscribed organisation.

“We expect the trustees to continue to take swift action to address the respective concerns.”

Roake said that in the past year and a half, the commission has opened more than 300 regulatory cases involving charities supporting different sides of the Middle East conflict.

It has issued formal statutory guidance to charities in around 100 cases and made more than 70 referrals to the police “where it considers a criminal offence might have been committed”, he said.