Below is our reply to a query from the Financial Times on 29 May 2026 followed by the text of the query itself.
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Dear Mr Wright
Please note you have come through to IHRC Ltd, a not-for-profit company, not IHRC Trust, the charity.
You are not the first journalist to make insinuations about links to Iran without providing any evidence. Given current world events, we appreciate the need felt by sections of the British media to engage in hysterical propaganda in order to deflect attention from the systemic war crimes of Britain’s allies in the Middle East. Raising the [unevidenced] spectre of an Iranian linked fifth column within the UK no doubt serves that purpose.
However, these unevidenced insinuations are becoming tiresome. We therefore leave you with links to our previous responses to similarly asinine claims:
https://www.ihrc.org.uk/response-to-query-from-metro-news/
https://www.ihrc.org.uk/letter-to-lord-walney/
https://www.ihrc.org.uk/reply-to-daily-telegraph-article-15-06-2025/
https://www.ihrc.org.uk/response-to-times-article-using-zionist-agent-lord-walney-to-smear-ihrc/
https://www.ihrc.org.uk/response-to-telegraph-re-support-of-palestine-action/
https://www.ihrc.org.uk/request-from-telegraph-on-holocaust-memorial-day-letter-and-ihrcs-response/
As a matter of policy, IHRC publishes all media correspondence in full to ensure an accurate public record of exchanges, particularly when our comments are misquoted or omitted entirely.
Regards
Media
IHRC
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Dear IHRC,
I am a reporter from the Financial Times.
I am working on a story about charities under investigation by the Charity Commission that are closely linked to Iran and have been accused of engaging in activities that promote extremism, terrorism and hate speech.
In your case, I note that the Charity Commission in October began a statutory inquiry, focused on your funding of a non-charitable company.
There have also been general complaints that your director has praised the Iranian regime and endorsed the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. There have been accusations that your organisation is part of an Iranian “soft power” network in the UK.
What is your response to these points? Is it appropriate, in your view, for a group so closely associated with Iran’s hostile government to hold charitable status in the UK?
I look forward to hearing from you. I am preparing this story today, Friday, May 29, and need to hear from you by 4pm today.
Robert Wright,
Newsroom Reporter,
Financial Times.
Financial Times.
