Interim manager appointed at Iran regime linked charity

The Charity Commission has drafted in an interim manager to run a London based charity amid concerns of its links to the regime in Iran.

Emma Moody of Womble Bond Dickinson has bee appointed to run the Islamic Centre of England, which has been the subject of a statutory inquiry since November. It has also been issued with an official warning.

This investigation is looking at the content of the charity’s website and the trustees’ management of conflicts of interest following newspaper reports last year of a speech by a trustee at the charity condemning women protestors in Iran.

Protestors were reportedly referred to by the trustee as “soldiers of Satan”.

Further concerns have been raised around links the charity has to Iran, including holding events at its premises that “eulogised” the late Iranian military commander Major General Qasam Soleimani, who was killed by a US air strike in 2020.

Moody has been deployed after the trustees’ “failure to comply with their legal duties and responsibilities and their failure to protect the charity’s assets”, said the regulator.

“We need to act robustly where serious concerns about a charity exist, so that the public, and the charity sector itself, can have confidence in what it means to have charitable status,” added Charity Commission chair Orlando Fraser.

“The investigators leading this inquiry are assessing all information thoroughly. The appointment of an interim manager will help the Commission ensure the charity’s governance is restored and is improved to a better standard.”