BBC Radio 4: "HSBC, Muslims and Me"

BBC News and the Middle East Eye report on developments in the investigation into the closure of Muslim bank accounts by banking giant HSBC amid accusations that the United Arab Emirates may be behind the bank’s “risk appetite” claims.

The investigation is to be aired in a radio programme on BBC Radio 4 tonight (at 8pm) titled, “HSBC, Muslims, and Me”.

The investigation led by Peter Oborne and BBC journalist Anna Meisel, is significant given the role the HSBC issue played in the decision taken by Oborne to quit his post as chief political commentator at the Daily Telegraph.

Yesterday Peter Oborne, in the Middle East Eye, reported that the UAE listed the Cordoba Foundation, a UK based organisation that works to improve dialogue between Islam and the West, as having links to terrorism on a database used by HSBC. The Cordoba Foundation had its bank accounts closed last July, as did its chief executive Anas al-Tikriti along with a number of other British Muslims, such as Mohammed Kozbar, chairman of the Finsbury Park Mosque.

Oborne wrote that when he logged on to World-Check, a website used by 49 of the world’s 50 largest banks to help them make risk assessments relating to new or existing bank accounts, the Cordoba Foundation was listed as a “terrorist” organisation by the cabinet of the UAE, along with Finsbury Park Mosque. On closer examination of the website, Oborne notes that blogs and news agencies, such as Muslim Brotherhood Watch and the UAE’s official news agency, WAM, which has close links to the UAE government, were used as sources to corroborate the “terrorist” claims.

However, Mr Kozbar said he was shocked that World-Check had listed his mosque as a terrorist organisation, especially since the new management board which had been running the mosque for 10 years had gained approval from the police for turning its fortunes around. Furthermore, he stated that the bank did not contact him or the mosque committee before their accounts were closed but explained later that “the provision of banking services… now falls outside of our risk appetite”. Similarly, UBS and NatWest were also found to have closed accounts or blocked or delayed funds to or transfers from accounts held by UK based charities and international non-governmental organisations, without offering detailed explanations as to why banking services were being restricted or revoked.

The news first came to light last year following Cordoba Foundation’s bank account closures when Mr al-Tikriti suggested that the UAE, which holds a significant stake in HSBC, may have influenced the bank’s decision to close several accounts owned by him and his family after the UAE listed the Foundation as a “terrorist” organisation alongside groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Oborne claims that the bank account closures were linked to the British government’s review of the Muslim Brotherhood, following claims that the review was announced at the behest of the governments of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. BBC News reports that one senior government official said: “There is a definite connection between the bank account closures and the review of the Brotherhood.”

Oborne observes the purported connection between the review and HSBC’s actions noting that just three months after the government’s announced review, the bank sent letters to well-known British Muslim organisations and individuals informing them of their accounts being closed.

The Cordoba Foundation’s chief executive, Anas Al Tikriti, said he found it “quite incredible” that the UAE could designate the Cordoba Foundation as a “terrorist” organisation, especially as it operates “according to British company and financial laws.”

He demanded that “secretive profit-making entities such as WorldCheck be investigated, their sources exposed and the information they provide on customers be openly published and allowed to be challenged.”

Following the actions of HSBC in closing the bank accounts of a number of prominent individuals and organisations, including the Ummah Welfare Trust, they were accused of “shamelessly profiling” their customers. Complaints by Muslim charities to the regulator, the Charities Commission, have not been heeded with the regulator stating the bank’s actions are an independent business decision and outside the remit of the regulator. The disparity in the Commission’s obligations to improve transparency and operations in the charity sector has not been lost on Muslim charities who fear the impact of the loss of banking services on their ability to provide full transparency over donations and transfers. Ironically, the Charities Commission were recently given new powers to freeze bank accounts to tackle “the menace of extremism”. Given the tenuous grounds on which Muslim charities find themselves accused of “terrorism financing” and the sources or political origins of such claims, the use of the new powers is likely to provoke some concern.

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has highlighted these claims arguing cases of charities supporting extremism or terrorism related activities were being exaggerated and that the “risk had been overstated by some interested parties.”

The issue of “interested parties” is particularly significant given efforts that look to be exerted by “interested parties” to deliberately misrepresent or tarnish the reputation of Muslim Brotherhood linked organisations.

Just recently The Times published a front page article, “Unwitting students fund Islamist projects with their rent payments,” which relied primarily on the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch’s Steven Merley as its source for information on the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK.

Merley runs the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch website and is also an “expert” on the MB at the Hudson Institute. The Hudson Institute includes among its board members, the “sugar mama of anti-Muslim hate”, Nina Rosenwald and has hosted the likes of Douglas Murray and Geert Wilders. The Times does not disclose Merley’s links to the Hudson Institute merely portraying him as “a leading authority on the global Brotherhood movement”.

Oborne’s investigation and his commitment to tell the story behind the HSBC bank account closures exposes the shady actors and nefarious influences impacting on British Muslim lives.