Organisers of an al-Quds day march in London are “closely associated with the Iranian regime”, Shabana Mahmood has told MPs.
The annual protest, which was created by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is billed as an international day in support of Palestine. Home secretary Shabana Mahmood has approved a request from the Metropolitan Police to ban the march planned for Sunday “to prevent serious public disorder”.
Ms Mahmood told MPs the plans for the procession “have been led by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC)”, an organisation “that has been closely associated with the Iranian regime”. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp described the group as “in essence a front organisation for the Iranian regime”.
The IHRC have said that the protest will go ahead on Sunday as a static demonstration and that they are an independent NGO, which does not accept funding from any government. They said that the al-Quds day event is organised by a committee involving many organisations, of which the IHRC “is prominent”.
Ms Mahmood said that she agreed to ban the march, the first ban since 2012, because of “heightened attention” on Iran due to the Middle East conflict, which would prompt “larger expected attendance”.
She warned of “heightened tensions between protesters and counterprotesters and therefore greater potential for conflict”.
The ban, which is in force for one month but could be extended, comes into effect today and will end on the 11 April. The Home Office and the police do not, however, have the ability to ban a static protest.
Shadow home secretary Mr Philp said that chants at al-Quds marches in the past have called for intifada and revolution and included speeches that incited antisemitism.
He quoted a former Iranian deputy minister of culture who warned of a “network of Iranian charities in the UK” that are “funded and controlled by the regime in Tehran”.
A new report by Lord Walney, the former independent adviser on political violence, warned that UK authorities are failing to combat the national security threat posed by a network of more than 30 charities, religious institutions or community centres that had been set up to further the interests of the Iranian regime.
Launching the report on Wednesday, Lord Walney told an event in Westminster that there was ongoing “abuse of our open society by a hostile foreign state”.
He said the Iranian regime had a “long record of assassinations, terrorism, proxy warfare, and transnational repression,” adding: “We must face up to the fact that we are also failing to tackle the soft power infrastructure that also exists alongside the hard power one.”
Referring to the charity commission’s work to clamp down on these groups, Lord Walney added: “Our response remains alarmingly weak. These investigations can go on literally for years and are paused, with the charity fully functional, when a police investigation starts.”
He also pointed out that the charity commission was focused on regulatory failings and so while they may be able to “secure procedural improvements” they are “leaving the underlying ideology in tact”.
Lord Walney described this as “continuity without real disruption”. Lord Walney added that “we just need to be clearer that Iran’s hostility in the region is a threat to the UK”, likening their infiltration in the UK to that of Russia.
He warned that the al-Quds march could still cause disorder if it is allowed to go ahead as a static protest on Sunday.
The IRHC has been contacted for comment. In a response to Lord Walney’s report, the organisation denied any Iranian alignment or state links and rejected allegations of antisemitism as un-evidenced.
