Walneyoffice@parliament.uk
19 January 2026
Dear Mr Woodcock,
We write in response to your letter dated 12 January 2026.
You are doubtless aware that IHRC is a human rights organisation that works for human dignity for all peoples regardless of their background. We are part of a number of coalitions, including the Convivencia Alliance, which sees Jews, Muslims and Christians work together to promote equality and justice. We emphasise this at the outset, as our record has shown clearly the values which we hold. Your record sadly tells a different story.(1)
We note that your unevidenced claims were repeated verbatim in the Spectator this week,(2) an outlet edited by your wife. These claims were then repeated in other outlets. The timing with your letter and the similarity of the language used suggests this was coordinated: so that you could then cite that coverage in your report as “evidence,” manufacturing the very authorities you intend to rely on to lend weight to your McCarthyite bluster.
We are concerned that you are using your position as a peer inappropriately in connection with this report. Please clarify the capacity in which you are writing it (for example, in a personal capacity or on behalf of a parliamentary role or body).
At present, it appears to be a personal inquiry. However, the correspondence has been issued without letterhead while using parliamentary resources, including your office and parliamentary email address. This creates an ambiguity as to whether the report is intended to carry parliamentary authority.
For the avoidance of doubt, we ask you to explain (i) whether any parliamentary resources have been used in preparing the report, and (ii) whether you consider the report to be covered by the House of Lords Code of Conduct.(3)
Your report concerns foreign influence in the United Kingdom. In light of publicly documented links (4) you have had with Israel (a foreign state), please set out clearly how this report is being funded.
Specifically, please confirm:
- the source(s) of funding and any in-kind support (including staff time, research assistance, travel, hospitality, or services);
- whether any parliamentary resources have been used in its preparation or circulation; and
- any relevant declarations you have made, or will make, in the Register of Lords’ Interests.
Given the subject matter, and your own compromised status having received copious amount of funding from the Israel lobby (5) (a foreign state seeking to influence British politics?), transparency is important. The public will reasonably wish to understand whether this work is independent and whose interests, if any, it may advance.
You appear to be racialising the whole organisation as Iranian on the basis of the ethnicity of myself. The others involved with the named organisations are from different parts of the world, yet you ignore the majority’s nationalities and ethnicities where they do not fit your absurd narrative. That is a racist proposition and does not behove a member of the House of Lords. It is not an excuse to rely on comments from bad-faith actors (6) as a basis for these claims.
As you are aware IHRC Ltd is a not-for-profit company NOT a charity.
As such your claims regarding our work have no relevance to the UK Charity system. It may be that you are trying to mislead any potential readership of your ‘report’. It may be that you genuinely do not understand what you are writing. In either event this is a serious matter that raises concerns about your actions, which need investigation and which need to be accounted for.
You have offered a right of reply but have not offered any specific accusations or allegations for us to reply to. Just unevidenced insinuations. Are you willing to share the specific claims you intend to make (if any) so we can address them? Or is the report just vague innuendo?
Our reply to your letter:
1. Entities based at our address
Multiple entities can operate from the same address, and it is a common arrangement. In fact, there are multiple companies registered at 1 Mayfair Place, where your own service company is registered. Are we to presume the other companies are linked to and influence you? (7)
All three entities are separate from one another, have separate management structures and operations.
This is a matter of public record. There is nothing to “investigate” or “report” in this regard, we publicly make this information available ourselves.
2. The Independent Review of Prevent describes the IHRC as “an Islamist group ideologically aligned with the Iranian regime”, that has a “history of extremist links and terrorist sympathies”
IHRC categorically rejects your defamatory and baseless claims, and we reject your reliance on the flawed findings of the Shawcross Review. (8) Your statements are factually inaccurate, plainly defamatory, and appear to be politically motivated.
In our organisation’s 28-year history of advocating for human rights and holding power to account, there has never been any links between IHRC and any state. It is why neither you nor Shawcross produce actual evidence. IHRC is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
Your reliance on the thoroughly debunked Shawcross review disregards widespread criticism from Muslim and non-Muslim civil society organisations, including Amnesty International. In their press release of February 2023, Amnesty International stated ‘The review is riddled with biased thinking, errors and plain anti-Muslim prejudice.’ Amnesty also describe this review as led by a man who has a history of making anti- Muslim statements, and which is ‘riddled with biased thinking, errors and plain anti-Muslim prejudice’.
Furthermore, Amnesty joined a coalition of 17 human rights and hundreds of community groups in a boycott of the Shawcross-led review, citing serious concerns about bias and a pattern of behaviour which demonstrated the Government’s unwillingness to seriously interrogate the Prevent Duty. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases./uk-shawcross-review-prevent-deeply-prejudiced-and-has- no-legitimacy
The continued reliance on the flawed Shawcross Review by yourself and the Spectator suggests you have no actual evidence, otherwise you would have presented it in your letter. Instead, you are reduced to recycling the utterances of an Islamophobe, repeating his comments ad nauseum, hoping the disinformation will be treated as fact. This is the oldest political trick: repeat a lie often enough and hope it sticks. But unlike Shawcross and the right-wing media echo-chamber, you are a parliamentarian and held to a higher standard. So, substantiate these allegations with actual evidence, or stop repeating unproven claims sourced from bad-faith and prejudiced sources.
We also find your reliance on Shawcross an interesting fact given your collaboration with the Spectator in spreading these false claims against our organisation.(9) Afterall, you both were part of a consortium that bid for the Jewish Chronicle.(10) An outlet so avowedly pro-Israel (foreign state influence?) that it published Israeli intelligence propaganda.(11) It has also been held to account for spreading anti-Iran propaganda, something you may wish to note in preparation of this report.(12)
It is certainly a matter for the parliamentary ombudsman as to why a member of the House of Lords would use the Shawcross review to malign and harass human rights defenders.
3. IHRC has held Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council since 1997.
We question what will be “reported” in this regard. In any event, this is incorrect. IHRC has held Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council since 2007. Our reports have been well received at the UN.(13)
4. IHRC Legal
This point does not relate to our organisation.
5. IHRC Trust and the Charity Commission
This paragraph is confused and factually untethered from reality, such that it is not possible to respond to it in any meaningful way. You appear to have garbled basic facts and conflated distinct entities and processes. We suggest you should first establish what the facts you wish to allege are. Unless and until you can set out a coherent, evidenced account of what it is you wish to accuse us of, we will not engage with ignorant assertions of this nature.
6. IHRC position on a definition of Islamophobia and its campaign to scrap Prevent.
Yes, IHRC has long advocated both positions. They are mainstream civil liberties and human rights concerns advanced by numerous UK and international bodies, and they have been debated for years across civil society, Parliament and legal circles, including in UN fora.(14) They are not novel, covert, or inherently connected to any foreign state.
IHRC has repeatedly made these calls over the 28 years it has been in operation and these can all be found on our website, as well as in the UN documentation database. You will note that we have held and participated in many events alongside other civil society actors, politicians, legal experts etc where such issues have been discussed, both in the UK and overseas and in particular at the UN.
What, precisely, is your criticism here? Aside from using these two issues as dog whistles, your point is unclear. Is your contention that the many parliamentarians and public figures who have supported a definition of Islamophobia (e.g. Anna Soubury and Wes Streeting), or who have criticised Prevent (Baroness Chakrabarti), are likewise acting under “undue influence” of the ‘Iranian regime’?
You will note that IHRC, in its collaborative work on the anti-terrorism regime in the UK, has co-signed demands with other peers of the realm. Do you contend that these peers are also part of the ‘undue influence’? Or is that IHRC, as an organisation led by Muslims and people of colour, are not, in your opinion allowed to hold views you dislike?
Given the repeated calls for accountability from you, we understand your aversion to a definition of Islamophobia.(15)
Finally, we find it noteworthy that, having accepted substantial support from Israel-linked organisations, you have then used your public positions to call for the freedoms of British people who criticise Israel (speech, protest and political advocacy) to be curtailed in order to limit that criticism. I appreciate that introspection is a quality that is generally beyond the grasp of venal propagandists, but others may wish to reflect on what this says about whose interests your report is advancing.(16)
7. IHRC has opposed the proscription of anti-Israel direct action group Palestine Action
This is an entirely legal position to take, and one which many civil society actors, public figures and politicians have taken. Again, is it your contention that IHRC cannot have the same lawful views, or the same right to political participation in the life of the British nation because we are Muslim led and people of colour? Again, you seem focused simply on racialising IHRC and targeting us in a racist fashion.
8. IHRC co-organised and sponsored Quds Day rallies in London
You make a number of spurious, disingenuous and outright misrepresentative claims about Al-Quds Day. In our experience, such claims are usually levelled by bad faith pro-Israel actors, of which it seems clear you are one. The event is organised and supported by a wide range of organisations, including many Jewish groups. Participation is diverse (with people of all faiths and none attending) and the event itself is family oriented. To claim otherwise is not only misrepresentative but sinister. You will recall that this type of maligning by the far-right and pro-Israel activists in 2017, led to Darren Osborne hiring a van to drive into the Al-Quds Day procession with the aim of killing as many protestors as possible. When he could not pass the police cordon, he turned his violent intentions onto worshippers leaving a mosque in Finsbury Park, killing and maiming many. In her sentencing remarks Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb stated:
1. … you hired a big heavy van and the next day you took it from Cardiff to London intending to deploy it as a lethal weapon to drive into and murder innocent people, lawfully assembling and protesting in London…
13. You attempted to kill at least a dozen people and succeeded in taking the life of a peaceful man you knew nothing about and had never met. You acted alone. You had not been radicalised over a long period of time but your rapid decline into irrational hatred of all Muslims turned you a danger to the public. The court has seen no evidence that the danger you present has lessened; indeed, your conduct and language in court exposes your unreformed attitude and lack of insight. You will pose a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm occasioned by the commission of further serious specified violent offences for a very long time: perhaps for the rest of your life. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/r-v-osborne-sentencing-remarks.pdf
IHRC has repeatedly been targeted for violence in these last few years (including during the Gaza genocide, when the premises were attacked after similar misleading claims were made), and your unfounded claims only add to the material that incites such violence.
In a similar vein, please note that there have been no illegal displays of material or any illegality at Al-Quds Day.
9. IHRC has also produced and sold a range of material on its website which promote Iranian regime ideas, such as posters depicting Palestinian resistance (with the words ‘From the West Bank to Baltimore’ printed across) or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacker Leila Khaled with a rifle.
You claim we have sold items that promote ‘Iranian regime ideas’. You list a print that links West Bank protests for civil rights with Black Lives Matters protests in the US, and likewise a poster of Leila Khalid depicting her from the 1970s before the Iranian Revolution took place. It seems you are keen to curtail free speech and expression when it relates to human rights and civil liberties, by demonising anything you oppose with racist narratives about Muslims, Iran and Islam. Have you made the same accusations against Pluto Press or any other bookshop, publishers, art galleries or civil society organisations who use similar imagery and concepts?
You should also note that in accordance with international humanitarian law, wars of national liberation have been expressly embraced, through the adoption of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949(17) as a protected and essential right of occupied people everywhere.
In 1974, resolution 3314 of the UNGA prohibited states from “any military occupation, however temporary”. The resolution not only went on to affirm the right “to self-determination, freedom and independence […] of peoples forcibly deprived of that right,[…] particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination” but noted the right of the occupied to “struggle … and to seek and receive support” in that effort.
In 1982 UNGA resolution 37/43 established the lawful entitlement of occupied people to resist occupying forces by any and all lawful means. The resolution reaffirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”
The right to resist is enshrined in international law reiterated by UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese (Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967). There is, therefore, nothing controversial in stocking material in our bookshop related to Iranian or Palestinian resistance. As stated, under international law, people have a right to resist genocide, occupation, and crimes of aggression.
Zionist calls of attacking Iran and delegitimising Palestinians by linking them to Iran have been well documented.(18) However, to see such propagandising from a UK parliamentarian is concerning.
10. IHRC has sought to undermine the rights and responsibilities of British democracy via Quds Day rallies, Islamophobia campaigning, and its ‘Islamophobe of the Year awards’.
The IHRC work you seek to malign in this paragraph is us exercising our right to protest, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association. Rights and freedoms supposedly enshrined and protected by British democracy. The suggestion that the organising Al-Quds Day, campaigning on Islamophobia or the Islamophobia Awards “subverts democracy” is therefore astounding and ridiculous, especially for a parliamentarian to make. It is you, and other bad-faith actors, who appear to want to curtail peaceful protest and suppress political, artistic and satirical expression.
As you will be aware the Islamophobia Awards are a satirical event based on Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball. Unless you are willing to make the same claims about Amnesty International, it is clear that once again you are simply creating and using racist narratives to malign our work and by extension other forms of legitimate protest, satire and political and artistic expression.
11. IHRC representatives have been repeatedly featured on PressTV.
Appearing or publishing on a particular platform is not equivalent to endorsing or supporting it. Over the years, I and others within IHRC have appeared on CNN, Al Jazeera, LBC, Channel 4, Sky News and the BBC, among other channels. Our appearance on those channels does not amount to support or promotion of their editorial lines or the views of individuals they platform or promote. The same principle applies to other news platforms which you might disagree with. We will engage with any news platform that will allow us to engage in matters of public importance, without misrepresenting our views.
You state you will be publishing a number of statements by and or about past and current figures at IHRC, including myself. However, if you do not provide those statements neither IHRC or the people involved will be able to have a right if reply.
In relation to your claim about Basij, I suspect these are you recycling false accusations previously made by the Jewish Chronicle. As we stated to them following the publication of their unevidenced claims, the individuals whom they name as my links to Basij, are in fact not members of Basij.(19)
On the final page you make a series of further unevidenced claims:
- Members of the Iranian diaspora are apprehensive about travelling into Brent, where a number of prominent Iranian-linked charities are based.
Brent has 5% of London’s Iranian diaspora population. Given the large Iranian presence in the borough, many of who are dissidents and refugees, we are unsure why you are making this claim.
Your claim is even more surprising in light of recent evidence showing Iranian dissidents intimidating Iranian run businesses to put up flags of the deposed Shah, and threatening violence those who refuse.(20) The campaign started in northwest London but has now been pushed out nationwide. Threatening businesses across the UK is difficult to reconcile with your pathetic and unevidenced claims that they are apprehensive about entering Brent.
- The network of Iranian-aligned British charities have been key players in the exporting of a revolutionary antisemitic worldview linked to the Iranian government.
- The network of Iranian-aligned British charities is used by Iran to further access to influential people and institutions, activities which have been described by a former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislator as a form of espionage.
- Elements within the network of Iranian-aligned British charities demonstrate extensive and ongoing links to the IRGC.
You have not provided a single shred of evidence for Iranian alignment in these three points, let alone evidence antisemitic worldview or links to IRGC. These points read like a pro-Israel propagandists instruction manual or even wish list.(21)
There is significant evidence to seriously question your independence and impartiality in compiling a report that does not involve an Israeli linked organisation. You have openly received funding from entities closely aligned with a foreign state(22), notably through your role with organisations funded by or connected to Israel. This includes your involvement with the Purpose Defence Coalition, which counts arms manufacturers among its members. If there is genuine concern (23) about undue foreign influence in British political discourse scrutiny should begin there. You have a track record of being mired in conflicts of interest (24) and was previously reported (25) to the House of Lords Commissioners for Standards last year. It is also notable you have been accused of serious sexual misconduct (26) in 2018, amid claims you sent inappropriate messages to a former female member of staff. You resigned in ignominy, presumably to undermine the democratic processes of the Labour party (for the irony impaired please see question 10) and to avoid accountability.(27)
IHRC will publish this response in full. This ensures there is an accurate public record should our comments be misquoted or omitted entirely.
Yours sincerely,
Massoud Shadjareh
Chair, Islamic Human Rights Commission
1/ https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2025/09/19/john-woodcock-racism/
2. https://spectator.com/article/irans-cheerleaders-are-on-borrowed-time/ https://spectator.com/article/irans-useful-idiots-british-complicity-in-tehrans-terror/
3. https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/lords-commissioner-for-standards/code-and-guide- april-2025.pdf
4. https://members.parliament.uk/member/3917/registeredinterests
https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-extremism-adviser-has-been-funded-by-israel-lobby/ https://www.ihrc.org.uk/response-to-times-article-using-zionist-agent-lord-walney-to-smear-ihrc/
5. https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=24837
6. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-shawcross-review-prevent-deeply-prejudiced-and-has-no- legitimacy
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/02/uk-ngos-condemn-appointment-of-william- shawcross-and-announce-civil-society-led-review-of-prevent/
7. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search?q=W1J+8AJ
8. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-shawcross-review-prevent-deeply-prejudiced-and-has-no- legitimacy
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2021/02/uk-ngos-condemn-appointment-of-william- shawcross-and-announce-civil-society-led-review-of-prevent/
9. https://spectator.com/writer/william-shawcross/
10. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/23/jewish-chronicle-saved-by-consortium-after-messy-takeover-battle
11. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/12/idf-investigates-claim-jewish-chronicle-published-stories-based-on-fabricated-intelligence
12. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/23/jewish-chronicle-saved-by-consortium-after-messy-takeover-battle
13. https://www.ihrc.org.uk/ihrc-at-un/
14. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2FC%2FGBR% 2FCO%2F24-26&Lang=en
15. https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2025/09/19/john-woodcock-racism/
16. https://novaramedia.com/2025/02/20/the-governments-anti-democracy-tsar-finally-got-sacked-but- protest-is-still-under-threat/
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/lord-walney-is-back-this-time-setting-democracy-itself-is-in-his-sights
Israel lobby trying to outlaw independent candidates and campaigns
17. https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%201125/volume-1125-I-17512-English.pdf
18. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-protests-israel-social-media-erupts-calls-overthrow- government
19. https://www.ihrc.org.uk/jewish-chronicle-article-on-ihrc-and-ihrc-replies-to-its-earlier-queries/
20. https://www.instagram.com/jamehmadaniiran?igsh=MTZla2Fxb3M0NHllMw%3D%3D
21. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPJrOTPjqaE/?utm_source=ig_embed
22. https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-extremism-adviser-has-been-funded-by-israel-lobby/
23. https://www.aljazeera.com/video/investigations/2017/1/10/the-lobby-young-friends-of-israel-part-1
24. https://goodlawproject.org/revealed-lord-walneys-fresh-ties-to-the-defence-industry/
25. https://goodlawproject.org/protest-adviser-must-be-removed-for-conflicts-of-interest/
26. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-mp-john-woodcock-facing-12446534
27. https://skwawkbox.org/2018/07/18/woodcock-quits-labour-blaming-witch-hunt-over-sex-pest-allegations/
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/jeremy-corbyn-critic-john-woodcock-faces-labour-sex-pest- probe
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-43948809
https://www.itv.com/news/2018-07-18/corbyn-critic-john-woodcock-quits-the-labour-party “It is understood that Mr Woodcock’s resignation means the Labour investigation cannot be concluded.”
