Ken and the "charities"

I blogged on Thursday about the prominent Muslim organisations and individuals who have pledged to back Ken Livingstone as mayor of London, saying it is in the "best interest" of Muslims to vote for him in this year's elections on May 1.

I have been doing some digging and have found this excellent piece at Harry's Place, under the excellently punny title "Faith, Ken's Hope and the Charities". The gist is that of the 63 signatories, sixteen have signed in the name of registered Charities and at least five of those sixteen are Trustees or Correspondents of the Charities. Now as the Charities Commission makes clear "
"A charity must not support a political party or candidate". It’s fine to identify one aspect of a candidate or party’s platform and endorse that, but endorsing a candidate or party implies support for all their policies and that clearly compromises the independence of the charity and makes it impossible for the Charity Commissioners to be sure that it is acting in the ‘public benefit’."

For your information, the 16 correspondents, Trustees and other representatives who committed their Charities to Livingstone's re-election are (per Harry's Place and with his comments):

Abdulmonem Haresha, Muslim Welfare House
Abdul Shaheed, North London Central Mosque
Dr Abdul Fattah Sa'ad, Al Muntada Al Islami Trust [Trustee]
Dr Abdul Kareem Khaleel, Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre [Correspondent]. Two of the Trustees are Councillors: David Campion and Nicholas Paget-Brown. Campion is a Conservative who represents Pembridge Ward in Kensington and Chelsea; Paget-Brown is also a Conservative who represents Hans Town Ward in the same Borough.
Dr Hashim Charif, Amal Trust [Trustee]
Hassan Muinudeen, Dawatul Islam [Trustee and Correspondent]
Imran Hamid, Muslim Health Network [“No valid trustee details held for this charity”]
Luqman Ali, Khayaal Theatre Company [Correspondent]
Mohammad Habib ur Rahman, President Islamic Forum Europe [Trustee]
Mohamad Mounir Rai, Hounslow Jamia & Islamic Centre [Trustee]
Mohamed Mumtaz, Crescent Relief [?Trustee]
Munier Hagus, The Eritrean Muslim Community Association [?Trustee]
Mustafa al Mansur, MOSAIC Foundation
Professor Tariq Ramadan, Lokahi Foundation
Ruhul Trafader, 1990 Trust
Sheikh Sulaiman Ghani, Tooting Mosque



Conservative Home have picked up on this story which should engender some traffic to Harry's Place and some formal complaints to the Charities Commission.

The Charities Commission have an appalling record when it comes to investigating and taking action on such breaches of Charity Law, maybe under the 2006 legislation they will finally take some action; however I doubt it. It is after all almost a year since the Charities Commission started an investigation into the "Smith Institute's use of No. 11 Downing Street. The fact that the charity seemed to have only one beneficiary - Gordon Brown - meant that it was not only breaking the rules against political activity by a charity, it was actually functioning as a factional powerbase for Brownites. The staff and trustees were all allies of the Chancellor". Do read the rest of that story on Guido Fawkes' site.


The matter gets even more murky if you read Donal Blaney who reports that "One of the signatories of the letter is Abdi Ismail, signing on behalf of the East African Society - supposedly a charity, even though its charity number is not displayed on its website (in breach of charity law)... Muslims also only account for 10% of the Kenyan population, so why is Abdi Ismail professing to speak on behalf of London's Kenyan community when, as a muslim, he is speaking for a minority of that community."


Ken Livingstone; love him or loathe him - well really just loathe him.

PS. Does anyone know how the Lee Jasper story is developing?