UK Bans Support For Hamas; GIOR Identifies Pro-Hamas Networks In UK

UK media report­ed last month that the UK gov­ern­ment declared Hamas, a mil­i­tant Islam­ic group that rules the Gaza strip, to be a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, out­law­ing any sup­port for orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als asso­ci­at­ed with Hamas. Accord­ing to a report in The Guardian:

 Novem­ber 19, 2021 Sup­port­ers of Hamas could face up to 14 years in jail under plans to be announced on Fri­day by Pri­ti Patel.  The home sec­re­tary said the organ­i­sa­tion will be pro­scribed by the gov­ern­ment under the Ter­ror­ism Act. It means any­one who express­es sup­port for Hamas, flies their flag or arranges meet­ings for the organ­i­sa­tion will be in breach of the law. […] Until now, the UK has banned only its mil­i­tary wing – the Izz ad-Din al-Qas­sam Brigades.

Read the rest here.

Accord­ing to the report, UK home sec­re­tary Pri­ti Patel said treat­ing the polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion and the mil­i­tary wing of Hamas dif­fer­ent­ly would be an “arti­fi­cial dis­tinc­tion between var­i­ous parts of the organization.”

For over 15 years, the GIOR and the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch (GMBDW) have exten­sive­ly report­ed on the activ­i­ties of Hamas and pro-Hamas net­works in Europe. Accord­ing to our research, the UK is home to an exten­sive pro-Hamas net­work that includes NGOs, char­i­ties, media out­lets, and lob­by groups. Some of the most impor­tant of these orga­ni­za­tions in the UK include:

• Inter­pal, a Lon­don-based Islam­ic char­i­ty which the US and Israel have  des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist enti­ty in rela­tion to fundrais­ing for Hamas

• Pales­tin­ian Return Cen­tre (PRC), a Lon­don-based NGO Israel des­ig­nat­ed as an ille­gal orga­ni­za­tion in 2010 as part of Hamas. Ger­many’s domes­tic intel­li­gence ser­vice has  described the PRC as a “plat­form for Hamas.”

• EuroPal Forum, Lon­don-based lob­by­ing and PR orga­ni­za­tion whose lead­ers are close­ly tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Hamas sup­port infrastructure

• Friends of Al-Aqsa, a Leices­ter-based ‘human rights’ NGO tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Hamas. Its UK bank accounts were once closed because it did­n’t suf­fi­cient­ly insure against funds being used for pro­scribed activities,

• Mid­dle East Mon­i­tor, an Eng­lish lan­guage news web­site that pro­motes a strong­ly pro-Broth­er­hood and pro-Hamas view whose senior staff are asso­ci­at­ed with Inter­pal and the UK Mus­lim Brotherhood.