A leading British bank has closed the accounts of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and several other pro-Palestinian groups amid charges that they might be funnelling funds to terrorist organisations.
Manchester-based Co-operative Bank issued a statement saying Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s (PSC) accounts failed due diligence checks to ensure that funds were not ‘inadvertently funding illegal or other proscribed activities.’ The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) claims to be surprised by the allegations and threatened legal action against the bank, crying foul about “discrimination.”
PSC is one of the most influential backer of the anti-Israel boycott campaign (BDS) in UK. Jeremy Corbyn, the newly-elected leader of the Labour Party, has long been a vocal supporter of PSC and other anti-Israel groups championing the “Palestinian cause.”
The Labour leader enjoys long and close ties to the activist group. PSC’s website describes him as “regularly speaks at [its] rallies” and being “tireless in his support for Palestine.” The British newspaper The Telegraph reports the latest revelations:
An activist organisation which has Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as patron has had its accounts closed down over fears that it may be inadvertently funding terrorism.Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), whose patrons also include the Oscar winning actress Julie Christie and the playwright Caryl Churchill, was told by the Co-operative Bank that “risk-appetite” was the reason for closing its account.In a statement, the bank said that due to the “high risk” locations in which PSC operates and send funds to, it had to carry out “advanced due diligence checks” on their accounts to ensure that funds do not “inadvertently fund illegal or other proscribed activities”.The statement concluded that it was “not possible to complete these checks to our satisfaction and the decision to close a number of accounts, including the PSC and some of its affiliates, is an inevitable result of this process”.
The Manchester-based Bank also closed the accounts of 20 other organisations linked to the “Palestinian cause” due to similar assessments.
The latest move by the bank is seen as a part of Prime Minister David Cameron new Counter-Extremism Strategy that seeks to curb funding for terrorist activities through charities and businesses. Leading Muslim organisations in Britain have opposed government’s counter-terrorism measures and accused the prime minister of ‘McCarthyism.’
In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected as the leader of the Labour Party. In the run up to the leadership election of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn got into trouble for his statement calling terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends.”
In 2013, Corbyn’s trip to Gaza was sponsored by a UK-based charity Interpal that has since been black-listed by the U.S. for being part of the terrorist group Hamas’ funding network.
Apart from supporting pro-Palestinian PSC, the 66 year-old politician has a history of championing obscure left-wing causes including ‘Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners’ and Moscow-funded communist front-group ‘Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’ during the Cold War.
Video: Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn gets angry when questioned about his ties to Hamas and Hezbollah
(Cover image courtesy Richard Millett, YouTube screenshot)
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