General Pharmaceutical Council admits pharmacist was antisemitic, but lets him off with warning

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee has ruled that comments made by a pharmacist at a 2017 Al Quds Day demonstration were indeed antisemitic, but they have only warned him about his future conduct.

Nazim Ali, a former director of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), was filmed and recorded making inflammatory statements, including false claims that “Zionists” were ” responsible for the murder of the people” in the Grenfell fire tragedy, as he led the annual pro-Iranian demo in central London.

Shouting through a loudspeaker, chemist Ali, speaking days after the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy, claimed:”“They are responsible for the murder of the people in Grenfell. The Zionist supporters of the Tory Party.” 

Ali also added:”Any Zionist, any Jew coming into your centre supporting Israel, any Jew coming into your centre who is a Zionist. Any Jew coming into your centre who is a member for the Board of Deputies, is not a Rabbi, he’s an imposter.”

Ali’s conduct, as uncovered by this journalist who joined the 2017 demo undercover, were deemed serious enough to be reported to the Metropolitan Police at the time.

But after the case was passed to passed to the CPS charging team they declined to proceed with prosecution. 

Following complaints from communal organisations the GPhC initially found Ali’s statements not to be antisemitic in a 2020 hearing, but this was overturned by the High Court, which directed the committee to consider the “cumulative impact” of his words.

Ali had admitted that his comments were offensive but was acquitted of accusations that they were antisemitic and merely given a first warning on 5 November 2020A re-hearing of the case by the GPhC’s Fitness to Practise Committee (FPC) took place, which accepted that  two statements from Ali, (out of four submitted for consideration), were antisemitic.

But in relation the Grenfell comments the committee concluded “that the ‘reasonable person’ would consider the use of the term ‘Zionist’ in this instance to be a synonym for ‘Jew’ because the events at Grenfell had no connection with Zionism, which is defined as, the development and protection of the State of Israel.

“Accordingly, it concluded the use of the word Zionism in this instance would be heard by the ‘reasonable person’ as an instance of the antisemitic trope.”

The also agreed the reference to the Board of Deputies crossed the boundary into antisemitic language. But two other speech extracts were not deemed to be antisemitic.

But  that committee issued him with a warning saying:”The Registrant, for all the reasons set out in the Committee’s decision, is hereby given a Warning that his future behaviour and comments that he makes must at all times avoid undermining the reputation of the profession, or the reputation of the regulator and must uphold the required standards of the pharmacy profession. 

“He is reminded in particular that ‘behaving professionally is not limited to the working day, or face to face interactions. The privilege of being a Pharmacist and the importance of maintaining confidence in the profession calls for appropriate behaviour at all time’.”

This decision has prompted  strong condemnation from the Board of Deputies. Amanda Bowman, one of its vice presidents,  expressed “deep concern” about the decision.

“The Board of Deputies is steadfast in its work to combat hate speech and antisemitism in all parts of society including in the pharmaceutical profession”, she said in a statement. 

“We believe that this case raises important questions about the standards and values upheld by the GPhC and its Fitness to Practise Committee.”

Bowman added the decision as “totally irresponsible” and a “serious failure to protect the public against hate speech.” She called for for the PSA to review the decision, asserting that this is the second time the FPC has failed to effectively carry out its core function.

UK Lawyers For Israel and the Campaign Against Antisemitism had also raised complaints, with the later organisation launching judicial review proceedings,  in the past about the failure to properly sanction Ali for his conduct.

In 2020 the PSA argued the GPhC fitness to practice committee was wrong to take into account the context of the speech (the pro-Palestine event) or the intention behind the words.