by Camilla Turner, Sunday Telegraph
Labour MPs criticise charity watchdog’s ‘inadequate’ response to Tehran’s ‘influence network’
Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to clamp down on charities accused of operating as part of an Iranian influence “network” in Britain.
A group of Labour MPs have warned of a web of organisations are “appear to be actively promoting the Iranian regime’s ideology and interests”.
In a letter to Dan Jarvis, the security minister, the MPs argue that proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is an “important step” in limiting the regime’s ability to repress and kill protesters in Iran.
They go on to list several charities which they allege are part of the Iranian regime’s “influence on our shores”, arguing that the response of the sector watchdog, the Charity Commission, has been “inadequate”.
One charity they cite is the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), which describes itself as a campaign, research and advocacy non-profit which “struggles for justice for all peoples”.
Set up in 1997, it has special consultative status with the economic and social council of the United Nations. It has been under a statutory inquiry by the Charity Commission since last October.
It was criticised in the 2023 independent review of the Prevent counter-terror strategy by Sir William Shawcross, who described it as an “Islamist group ideologically aligned with the Iranian regime, that has a history of extremist links and terrorist sympathies”.