Charity Commission investigating planned ‘Jewish supremacists’ host venue

The Charity Commission has opened a case into the charity that owns the Birmingham venue which was due to host ‘Jewish supremacist’ conspiracists this Sunday, with further evidence that last month the location hosted an event featuring a hate preacher who lauded the 7 October mass terror attack by Hamas.

Make It Sustainable Ltd is the charity which owns The Old Print Works in Balsall, which was due to host the launch event of the “Anti-Zionist Movement”, featuring individuals such as David Miller, who was sacked from the university of Bristol in 2021 and now produces a show for Iranian state television. Another individual due to speak was Rahmeh Aladwan, whose medical licence was suspended in December while the General Medical Council conducts a full investigation into her conduct. After significant outcry, the venue announced that it had cancelled the event because it could not provide a “safe space” for participants.

The Charity Commission has confirmed to Jewish News that it is now investigating the charity in question, with a spokesperson saying: “Following significant concerns raised about an event organised by a campaign group at a venue owned by the charity Make It Sustainable Ltd, we immediately opened a regulatory compliance case to thoroughly assess this matter and contacted the charity’s trustees for more information.

“In line with our policy on evidence of potential criminal activity, we reported our concerns to the police. While the charity has now cancelled the booking, we continue to engage with its trustees, which will include a review of its policies on external events and speakers.”

The statement from the regulatory authority comes after West Midlands police confirmed today that they were looking at “potential offences” connected to a social media post that the “Anti-Zionist Movement” had made to publicise the event. Posts by the AZM connected with the launch described support for “armed resistance” and “campaigns against Jewish supremacy”. A further post referred to the group’s support for “Zio eradication”.

Meanwhile, Jewish News has found that last month The Old Print Works hosted an event featuring Asrar Rashid, an Islamist preacher who first achieved notoriety in 2011 when he called on Muslims not to serve in the British armed forces.

More recently, Asrar Rashid suggested that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans should be “shown no mercy” if they came to Birmingham for a Europa League match against Aston Villa. Fans of the Israeli club were subsequently banned for attending, a highly controversial decision which ultimately led to the retirement of the West Midlands Chief Constable, Craig Guildford.

YouTube Footage from 25 January shows an event called the ““Break the Siege Flotilla Launch”, featuring Rashid.

The event was chaired by Danny Mazhar, who is standing as an independent candidate in upcoming local council elections in Birmingham. At one point he says “Inshallah, the Satanic state of Israel will finally meet *inaudible*” and later stated, “We are going to keep smashing the Zionists”.

He then welcomes Asrar Rashid, described as “our mentor” and “leader of the local community”.

Mazhar, also known as Ifran, is a founding member of the Activists Independents Movement, the group publicly promoted on the social media flyer at the heart of the West Midlands investigation, as the host of the Anti-Zionist Movement at the Old Print Works.

Mazhar was joined by three individuals who took part in last year’s flotilla, including Leigh Evans, the Welsh nurse who wept in front of Egyptian police claiming Gaza “was the biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen”. Since then Evans, who claimed at the time that he was “a pacifist”, has been seen chanting “death to the IDF” outside the Welsh Senedd building.

Addressing the room, Rashid, who has more than 11,000 followers on X and 110k subscribers on YouTube, claimed “Israel purchases intelligence from other intelligence services” and its military and intelligence services are “over-rated which was demonstrated on 7 October.”

Continuing to mock the IDF by referring to them as the “Diaper Force”, he says “they are part time school teachers”, “cannot even take on the resistance forces when it comes to real warfare on the ground” and “think that they are more brave because they use air power. Without that airpower the IDF is nothing and can finish within a week or two weeks if they ever face a real military force.”

He goes on to refer to a potential war between “Iran and what is referred to as Israel” and hopes “there is a dismantling of the Knesset – it needs to be dismantled.”

Following the event, the AZM claimed it had raised £5k for another flotilla to set sail; reports today suggest one is scheduled for March with up to 1,000 activists involved.

On 7 October 2023, Rashid posted a prayer or ‘”dua” for the “Palestinian resistance against the Zionist entity.”

His social media presence features references to Gaza made into a “concentration camp”, the “Jewish supremacist IDF”, claims that the UK government is a “corrupt Zionist establishment” and and that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who is MP for a Birmingham constituency “has become a Zionist instrument”.

Another event in September last year, titled “a call for military intervention to stop the Gaza genocide”, featured barrister Franck Magennis, a lawyer connected to the legal challenge seeking to remove Hamas from the UK’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.

While Sunday’s event at The Old Print Works has now been cancelled, it is believed it will still go ahead at an undisclosed location.

Jewish News has contacted The Old Print Works for comment. Two earlier attempts to contact the venue generated no response.