The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is a non-profit organisation based in London. Its stated mission is to "struggle for justice for all peoples regardless of their racial, confessional or political background". The group was established in 1997. Since 2007, the organisation has held consultative status with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
The organisation has been accused of ties with the government of Iran and spreading Islamic extremism in the United Kingdom. In the British government’s independent 2023 review of its Prevent counter-extremism programme, directed by William Shawcross, the final report described the organisation as "an Islamist group ideologically aligned with the Iranian regime, that has a history of ‘extremist links and terrorist sympathies’ ".
The IHRC organises yearly Quds Day rallies, which take place on the last Friday of Ramadan to support the rights of the Palestinian people. Prior to 2019, the marches commonly included the display of Hezbollah flags, a group proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom in 2019.
Philosophy The IHRC states its philosophy derives from: Qur'anic injunctions that command believers to rise up in defence of the oppressed. "And what reason have you that you should not fight in the way of Allah and of the weak among the men and the women and the children, (of) those who say: Our Lord! cause us to go forth from this town, whose people are oppressors, and give us from Thee a guardian and give us from Thee a helper." Qur'an 4:75About Us IHRC website, accessed 17.8.10
Jytte Klausen of Brandeis University writes that the IHRC forms part of the organized Muslim community in Europe.Klausen, Jytte (2005). The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 76. "...the Muslim left, [is] represented by An-Nisa, the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism, and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (and the collective that issues the magazine Q News..."
Public intellectual and journalist Stuart Weir wrote that the IHRC is one of the representative voices of Muslims in the UK stating:
...the staff and voluntary workers of the Islamic Human Rights Commission – ... put the lie to the common idea that Islam and human rights are irreconcilable.
Activities The organisation states it is a campaign, research and advocacy organisation. It also engages in ad hoc and one-off projects.
Campaigns
The campaigns section features heavily on the organisation's website.
In 2015, it campaigned to repeal anti-terrorism legislation in the UK. Other main campaigns include one for political prisoners in Saudi Arabia. During the 2014 Gaza War, the IHRC held a high-profile campaign to get people to show solidarity with Palestinians by flying a Palestinian flag.
Other campaigns include the ‘Prisoners of Faith’ project, which has included campaigns to release various religious figures from imprisonment for their religious beliefs. Among these are Mu'allim Ibrahim Zakzaky released 1998, Gul Aslan released 1999, Nureddin Sirin, released 2004. The organisation also states the following have been released as a result of their campaigning: Mallam Turi, Zeenah Ibrahim from Nigeria; Sheikh Al-Jamri, Bahrain; Huda Kaya, Bekir Yildiz, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Nurilhak Saatcioglu, Nurcihan Saatioglu, Turkey; Sheikh Ahmed Yassine, Abdul Aziz Rantissi, Rabbi Biton, Sheikh Abdulkareem Obeid, Mustafa Dirani from Israeli detention; Mohammed Mahdi Akef, Egypt; Dr. Muhammad Osman Elamin, Sudan; Cehl Meeah, Mauritius; Abbasi Madani and Ali Behadj, Algeria.
Previous campaigns for 'Prisoners of Faith' focused on US detainees, and include Omar Abdul Rahman (the perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing), his attorney Lynne Stewart (convicted on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists in 2005), Ghassen Elashi (convicted of terrorist financing for funnelling $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas), former Black Panther Imam Jamil Al-Amin (serving a life sentence for murder), as well as Egyptian detainees including Khairet El-Shater, Deputy Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, released in 2010 and reincarcerated in 2013 after the coup.
Other campaign work includes thematic and country based campaigns e.g. for release of detainees in Bahrain, against brutalisation of immigrant women in France, and against niqāb bans in France, Bosnia, Belgium and Spain.
In 2000 the IHRC "protested against a government-backed European directive, which, according to them, would force Muslim charities and schools to employ non-believers and homosexuals".Pragna Patel, Hannana Siddiqui, "Shrinking Secular Spaces", in Ravi K. Thiara, Aisha K. Gill (2010). Violence against women in South Asian communities: issues for policy and practice. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. p. 115.
IHRC has promoted various boycott, divestment and sanctions actions, including a boycott of Israeli dates in the UK. In May 2010, the IHRC organised and led a delegation of European Muslim organisations to Turkey to lobby the Turkish government to veto Israel's accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The bid was unsuccessful as all 31 members of the OECD voted unanimously for Israel’s accession.
Other notable campaigns saw the campaign to have Mat Sah Satray and other ISA detainees in Malaysia released in 2009.
In 2006, IHRC began an emergency campaign against the imminent execution of British and Pakistani dual national Mirza Tahir Hussain. Other organisations, including Fair Trials Abroad and Amnesty International, joined the campaign.
After a BBC documentary broadcast on 15 July 2004 exposed very strong anti-Islamic opinions within the far-right British National Party, the IHRC has campaigned for the prohibition of that party.BNP Fascists must be Banned , IHRC press release, 15 July 2004
Advocacy
The bulk of IHRC's advocacy work, it claims, is undertaken away from the public glare and involves helping individuals with discrimination cases involving Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism. Some public testimonies and case reports exist highlighting this section of IHRCs work. In 2004 PhD student Yasir Abdelmouttalib was viciously assaulted in a race hate attack and left severely disabled. His mother states: 'Fortunately... I got support from... Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), the only community group in London with case workers to help Muslim victims of hate crimes like Yasir, and that helped us to pull through'. On 3 August 2006, the IHRC asked for judicial review of its allegations that the British government assisted with military shipments to Israel,IHRC Commences Legal Proceedings against British Government over Military Shipments to Israel , press release, IHRC, 3 August 2006 which was eventually denied.Leave denied to judicially review British government's assistance with military shipments to Israel , press release, IHRC, 23 August 2006
In 2010, IHRC publicly advocated against the introduction of full body scanners at UK ports.
In 2013 it claimed victory in the case, after the British government made a U-turn on the introduction of the full naked body scanners, before the matter came to court. The case, which IHRC supported objected to the scanners on the grounds of:
the dissolution of civil liberties, health issues, the explicit nature of the body scanners and storage of images, as well as the fact that the scanners could not detect plastics and liquids which was given as a reason for their introduction.
In 2014, IHRC Legal, a new section of IHRC was launched, quickly claiming a victory in a discrimination case featuring university lecturer who claimed indirect racial discrimination against his employers. His case was settled out of court.
The advocacy section is also involved in trial monitoring, with observer trips to Turkey, Mauritius and Bahrain featuring in this field.
Campaign for release of Abu Hamza al-Masri
IHRC's chairman, Massoud Shadjareh criticised the prosecution of Abu Hamza al-Masri in 2006, his extradition in 2012 to the US, and his conviction in 2014 in the US.
IHRC has been deeply critical of the treatment of Abu Hamza al-Masri on various counts. It has highlighted what it calls "double standards" in his treatment by the press, politicians and the legal system, arguing that the case of al-Masri highlighted societal and judicial double standards, averring to the failure to convict British National Party leader Nick Griffin and his colleague in the same week as convicting al-Masri of similar crimes. IHRC's chair, Massoud Shadjareh stated:
Notwithstanding Abu Hamza's controversial character and views, it seems astounding that this week Nick Griffin and his co-defendant from the BNP walked free from court and Abu Hamza has been convicted.
At a time when we are witnessing free speech mania directed at Muslims who have been told to put up with any insult, offence and abuse in the name of free speech, this verdict sends yet another signal that Muslims are not equal in the eyes of the law of this country.
In 2006, a British court found Abu Hamza al-Masri guilty of inciting violence, and sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment. On 5 October 2012, after an eight-year legal battle, he was extradited from the UK to the United States to face terrorism charges and on 14 April 2014 his trial began in New York. On 19 May 2014, Hamza was found guilty of eleven terrorism charges by a jury in Manhattan. On 9 January 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Campaign for release of Omar Abdel-Rahman
The group had campaigned for the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh" who was convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and was the leader of Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya, an armed terrorist group in Egypt which is proscribed by the British Government. The IHRC criticised the court's judgment including the use of laws "not used since the American Civil War" to convict Abdel-Rahman.
The organisation also campaigned for the release of Abdel-Rahman's lawyer Lynne Stewart, who was convicted on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists in 2005, and sentenced to 28 months in prison. Her felony conviction led to her being automatically disbarred. She was convicted of helping pass messages from her client Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric convicted of planning terror attacks, to his followers in al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, an organization designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States Secretary of State.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission presented Stewart with an award for her "fight against Islamophobia" in February 2014.
On Abdel-Rahman's death in 2017, the IHRC described him as "a rare man of principle…[whose] death will only make him a martyr and more of an inspiration."
Research
Hate crimes and discrimination The organisation published several reports which were based on third party reporting of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the UK, including statistics which were published one month after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and statistics which were published one year after the attacks.
Previously, it had employed basic survey methods to generate statistics for 1999 and 2000.
In 2009–10, it launched a pilot project in the UK and France by using a survey method, resulting in the publication of its findings in Getting the Message: The Recurrence of Hate Crimes in the UK (2011) and France and the Hated Society: Muslims Experiences (2012).
The project was refined and rerun in California, the rest of the US and Canada, resulting in the publication of Once Upon a Hatred: Anti-Muslim experiences in the USA (2013) and Only Canadian: The Experience of Hate Moderated Differential Citizenship for Muslims (2014).