Iranian Influence Group Offers Advice and Speakers to UK Schools

An Islam­ic por­tal has report­ed that an Iran­ian influ­ence orga­ni­za­tion has sent a let­ter to 15,000 UK schools offer­ing advice and speak­ers to help stu­dents “frame anti-Israel sen­ti­ment in a pos­i­tive anti-racist way.” Accord­ing to the 5Pillars report, titled “IHRC urges schools to shield pupils from Zion­ist intimidation”:

June 2021 The Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC) is urg­ing schools across the coun­try to shield pupils express­ing their sup­port for Pales­tine from intim­i­da­tion and gaslight­ing by Zion­ists and their sym­pa­this­ers. In a let­ter to 15,000 schools signed by civ­il soci­ety groups and activists (includ­ing Jew­ish organ­i­sa­tions, faith groups and peo­ple of no faiths), IHRC calls on the schools to resist such pres­sures because children’s free­dom of expres­sion is pro­tect­ed under inter­na­tion­al and nation­al human rights law. The let­ter comes after com­plaints from par­ents that their chil­dren have been rep­ri­mand­ed at school after mak­ing sim­ple com­ments about Pales­tine, such as “Free Pales­tine,” wear­ing a Free Pales­tine badge or dis­play­ing a Pales­tin­ian flag. Some teach­ers have open­ly warned that such slo­gans could incite vio­lence as grounds for their sup­pres­sion. This sup­pres­sion is respond­ing to pres­sures from the gov­ern­ment and/or pro-Israel organ­i­sa­tions, IHRC says.

Read the rest here.

The Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC) is a UK-based NGO found­ed in 1997. Since 2007, it has had Spe­cial Con­sul­ta­tive Sta­tus with the Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil (ECOSOC) of the Unit­ed Nations.  Its web­site says it works with dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions from Mus­lim and non-Mus­lim back­grounds “to cam­paign for jus­tice for all peo­ples regard­less of their racial, con­fes­sion­al, or polit­i­cal back­ground.” The IHRC has been sup­port­ive of the Iran­ian regime, and for many years has been cen­tral to orga­niz­ing the events of the annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Quds Day, which the US-based Anti-Defama­tion League has linked to “hor­rif­ic pro­pa­gan­da call­ing for the destruc­tion of the State of Israel, as well as mes­sages of sup­port for ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions and a del­uge of anti­se­mit­ic hate speech” In May, we report­ed on an IHRC press release call­ing on peo­ple to “Fly the Flag for Pales­tine” to mark the annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Quds Day.

Rel­e­vant Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ing has included:

• We report­ed today that Iran is inten­si­fy­ing its dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign on social media to spread dis­cord and anti-Semit­ic tropes in the US.

• In April 2021, we report­ed that the IHRC announced the launch of a new book by Imam Dawud Walid, who serves as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Michi­gan chap­ter of the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR-MI), a part of the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• In Decem­ber 2020, we report­ed on IHRC announc­ing its annu­al Islam­o­pho­bia Con­fer­ence, titled “The Attacks on Civ­il, Human and Polit­i­cal Rights for Mus­lims in Europe.”