Foreign Charities a big initiative or hurting public feelings

Barrister Amjad Malik

Recent media reports have forced me to write on the myth, law and working of foreign charities on the UK soil. No offence this article is not against any individual and or organisation and it’s not anti donations. Good causes are the heart and mind of kindness and all prophetic teachings of any religion promotes ‘charity’ as charity begins at home. Its the accountability and lack of regulatory oversight which breeds lawlessness, and misuse of not only of public funds but hurt public feelings. I care for human anxiety & public feelings more than the money.

A charity is a particular type of voluntary organisation - one that takes a distinctive legal form. Charities are expected by legal requirement to provide benefit to the public, not to a specific individual. Their aims, purpose or objectives have to be exclusively those which the law recognises as charitable ‘cause’. Registered charities have to obey a number of rules and regulations set out in charity law. Those that are registered as companies have to comply with company laws in addition.

A registered charity is not allowed to have political objectives or to take part in political lobbying (other than in a generally educational sense).      

Charity is defined by the Charities Act 2011 part 1 (1) as being :

“(1)For the purposes of the law of England and Wales, “charity” means an institution which— .(a)is established for charitable purposes only, and . (b)falls to be subject to the control of the High Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction with respect to charities.

(2)The definition of “charity” in subsection (1) does not apply for the purposes of an enactment if a different definition of that term applies for those purposes by virtue of that or any other enactment”.

To be a charity an organisation must have purposes or ('aims') all of which are exclusively charitable; a charity cannot have some purposes which are charitable and others which are not. The Charities Act  2011 defines a charitable purpose, explicitly, as one that falls within the following list of thirteen descriptions of purposes and is for the public benefit; they are:-

“ The prevention or relief of poverty ,  the advancement of education

the advancement of religion,  the advancement of health or the saving of lives,  the advancement of citizenship or community development , the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science , The advancement of amateur sport , The advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity , The advancement of environmental protection or improvement, The relief of those in need, by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage , The advancement of animal welfare , The promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown, or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services, Any other purposes currently recognised as charitable and any new charitable purposes which are similar to another charitable purpose.”

There are many excellent examples of registered charities that are extremely beneficial to our society in general, these include RSPCA, Christian Aid, RSPCC, and many faith based charitable organisations who are doing good work day in day out. But many in the recent years have not only come in the market but their claims are higher in achievement and physical actions are hollow and it is our collective duty to monitor, seek regulation and demand financial accountability from such outfits who are  using the name of a ‘good cause’ for personal gains and or profit. I am quite enthusiastic about a call made by ‘children in need’ on western media which collect millions in a day but that too holds itself to public as to where it goes. Cricketing legend Imran Khan’s cancer hospital is a fine example of Pakistani oriented success story of a charity purely collected and spent on charity. But, surely since his political endeavours his charitable aims have had a set back.

We all are well aware that foreign charities are everywhere in United Kingdom in the month of festivals, whether its Eid, Ramzan, Haj or during any disasters (earthquake or flods). Helping those in needs is not just one of the sermons of Islam, but almost all the religions in the world preaches commonsense morality and kindness to others. We can see the ever increasing number of charitable organisations and NGOs which are successfully working towards numerous humanitarian & good causes. However among all these the (UNO) United Nations is nothing less than the Milestone. In UK, On one hand Father Christmas (those who believe in Christianity ) are found all around on Christmas spreading joy and happiness through distributing gifts and on the other hand during Ramzan there is a huge influx of organisations spreading love through collecting charity and Zakat at a ratio set on hard earned money. Believers or not, all pay out of responsibility, fear or wrath of God, but, all  they do once their heart  bleed. There was a time when there were only a limited number of foreign working out of Pakistan, however now one can witness many such organisation at every nook and corner, mosques and community who have been widening their net beyond Pakistan and reaching out to the rest of the world. Unfortunately this work in the name of charity is spreading like a virus or a jungle fire and good cause and intention is fast taking over by an alternate of a profitable business, greed and alternative motives which is exempt of any losses.

In the past ten years a high amount of individuals who have furthered themselves as humanitarians working for charity which involved individuals from different parts of the society from cricket to Music and from human rights to medicine researchers and from mere mullah to established set ups coming to UK and raising funds for those good causes. So to say From Clerics to Sports personalities and from Singers to Poets all at sundry tried their luck in last decade in UK. There has never been a month when someone working in the name of charity has not paid a visit to Britain for collecting charity. Currently, there are around dozen Pakistani Channels broadcasting in the UK and numerous channels online belonging from the private sector. They are known for charging their advertisers per seconds. Representatives of these charitable organisations are seen appealing to the public for charity for hours upon hours and people splashing funds on them for the name of God, good cause. Successful is the one who bleeds the heart first and more. They are mostly successful in their endeavours and collect a heavy amount of charity however nobody among them ever is held accountable to give details of where this money is spent or charity commission which allows such ventures hold them accountable for the actions they have taken since collection.  It is common perception that the T.V channel owners and the Charity Representative distribute 80% of the total funds, but no one knows if the remaining 20% is given to deserving individuals. Other than these TV channels there are a dozen more channels famous transmitting religious content. Among these more or less all of them are either owned by a charitable organisation or are run on the basis of charitable donations. Radio stations & box collection at thousands of mosques in Britain are not named and counted.  The number of charities being registered in Britain is increasing rapidly, according to reposts there are 1073 charities currently registered, of which most belong to Pakistanis. There is a huge number of charities currently working without registration as well. It was learnt that there is a total of £ 60 million per year being remitted to Pakistan in the form of donations.

In Britain individuals are given full religious liberty and great opportunity to those who are interested in this kind of a good deed and on numerous occasions though it has been noticed that people employ the services of these organisations to turn their black money into white money laundering too is a worrying aspect of such outfits if the money collected for good causes is used for negative actions, terrorism or regime change. Most of these so called charitable organisations do not even have a website, and if they do then there is no mention on these sites about their incoming and outgoing funds. They also have no details about the trusties of these charitable organisations. Audited accounts or the executives who are relatives of the trustees who sit on these projects and mint money. One must ask if these charitable organisations are actually working for the humanity or is there an ulterior motive behind their existence. Is there a possibility that these selfless claims are but just a profitable business. God forbid, I am wrong but media reports are increasing day by day and It will be a good practice if the government of Pakistan keeps checking these transmissions and monitor the working of these organisations and bans those outfits quickly who are the cause of shame to the name of the country and or involved in money laundering, regime change and terrorism. I would on the other hand request that the Pakistani community exposes such sham organisations in order to eradicate this profitable business from their society.

Using a few examples, I will remind the readers of an article published by “The International News” Newspaper on the 13th September 2012 which gave us a great cause of concern. As the article alleges that a charity named “Trust Foundation” (registered charity number 143229), collected charitable donations of approximately £50,000 in the name of the late Arfa Karim (a star of the nation). Donations were apparently collected in Afra’s name to build an Arfa Karim IT Academy in Palandri, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. However Arfa’s family was neither aware nor involved in this campaign, and were not consulted. The newspaper article stated that “the adverts appeared in the print and web editions of a down market weekly Urdu paper called “UK Time London” during the month of Ramadan. The adverts appealed to over three million British Muslims to donate cash, zakat and alms”. It further states that, “the heartfelt appeal pledged that Arfa Karim IT Academy will provide education to the deprived and orphaned children but the investigations by The News show that there is no such academy built anywhere in Azad Kashmir”. It was claimed by the journalist in his article that the man behind the campaign, Mr. Haq, who is also the publisher and editor of “The UKTL”, said that his charity didn’t launch anything but plans to launch an Arfa Karim Academy in October this year”. Mr. Haq also went on to say that so far he has done nothing except develop Facebook pages of Arfa Karim IT Academy. The article also mentions that “The UK London Times” advertised the Arfa Karim IT Academy, and that Mr. Haq denied advertising the academy.  The article deeply upset Afra Karim’s family and community and was neither denied or challenged. Hence it was a great cause of concern for them and the public. Action was taken by lawyers in public interest and I believe the last I know the matter was settled by ( ‘maafi’ ‘talaafi’) with an assurance that ‘Arfa Karims’ name will never be used by those alleged with an apology. Arfa Karim’s family is running a high prifle trust in Lahore in her own name which is making a mark promoting a good cause.

Top my surprise, again in 2013, an article which was published by “The News International” on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 which gave a great cause of concern. The article alleged that a charity named (MuQ) Minhaj ul Quran International (charity number 1102801) and Minhaj ul Quran Welfare Foundation (charity number 1084057) (hereby collectively known as MuQ) collect a charitable donations and a bulletproof car was purchased for $69,000out of those funds.  That article was not challenged in any court of law here and abroad. Donations were collected by the charity for the purposes of Gaza Appeal, Orphan sponsorship, School  student sponsorship , University student sponsorship, Education Initiatives, Hifz sponsorship, Orphan essentials pack, Help feed, Water pump, Emergency relief, Health care initiatives. The charity claimed that it aims to benefit the general public at large.  Muslims in UK are more benefited specially the youngsters and children as is claimed in the summary information which was submitted online by (DU) who is company secretary. The write and the journalist failed to understand how the purchase of such an expensive vehicle with charity funding is benefiting the general public at large.

The accounts submitted to the charity commission show that the MuQ, which, in its last reports, showed a deficit of UK Pounds 200,000, an income of Pounds 1.6 million and expenditure of Pounds 1.8 million. The article also stated that the vehicle was purchased by and signed for by Mr. Dawood Hussain and there is no mention of this in any recent publications of the charity.  The donors to this charity are not aware of this campaign and were not consulted of the change in the nature of the charity; in fact there is no mention of this at all. All these various articles have been published in regards to MuQ and their disappointing recent actions and they have not taken any action against the newspaper which gives rise to a suspicion whether those articles are ‘telling the truth’ which needs a through probe to avoid deception, defrauding public on the name of human misery and misusing charitable funds. A n other public interest intervention  has been made to Charity commission seeking regulatory oversight and financial audit of those outfits out there for a regime change than aiding those in dire miseries for who a fund was collected at the first place.

This is extremely worrying as people put great trust in charities especially ones which have been registered with the charity commission, and for the donations not to be going where they have been intended and indicated in the published ‘call’ claim or broadcast which is undesirable, unacceptable and worrying. In February 2013, the  Charity commission was again knocked for ‘crystal’ accounting and some sort of regulatory accountability. But one thing is for sure that the issue of Foreign Charities coming to UK and using it as a safe haven to collect funds and without accountability settling personal gains is not going to go away easily. Its a big initiative or molestation of public feelings over natural disasters, or weaker economic situation back home is anybody’s guess. A collective ‘name and shame’ drive is required to detect, deter and defeat the ‘charity ‘mafia’ which is as strong as the land, sugar, property, and gun mafias  so that innocent donors continue donating for good causes which is the core difference between ‘good’, ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly’.

Barrister Amjad Malik is a Solicitor Advocate of the Supreme Court of England and is a Chair of the Association of Pakistani lawyers and was named ‘young human rights lawyer of the year 2000’ by Liberty , Justice & Law Society Gazette in UK. 

22 February 2013