Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Gordon Brown and "Dubious" Charities

Gordon Brown gave a speech today and, amongst other things, brought up the problem of dealing with the financing of terrorism. In his speech, published by The Guardian, he said:

And in particular we can address directly three of the most dangerous sources of terrorist finance: the abuse of charities, the abuse of money service businesses and the abuse of financial transactions.

We know that many charities and donors have been and are being exploited by terrorists. And all allegations of possible abuse are being examined. On August 24, to take one example, the Charity Commission launched an enquiry into the charity "Crescent Relief" and froze its bank accounts. But it is important to look at the whole sector so that dubious charities are rooted out and good charities protected from abuse. At the end of the year we will publish a report on our review.

Another charity currently being investigated is Interpal. Panorama recently showed a documentary indicating that its funds were going to support Hamas's terrorism. The Islamic Human Rights Commission, has put John Ware forward as a finalist in their Islamaphobia award for producing the documentary. In fact, the "charity" is already banned in the US. I suppose that Gordon Brown will soon be joining the elite list of "Islamaphobes" who dare to speak out against terrorism