The leader of two prominent Muslim advocacy groups in the United Kingdom appeared to justify Hamas’s taking of hostages in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and denied that the terrorists had raped women during the massacre, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.
In a video discussion with U.S. Imam Tom Facchine recorded in November 2023, British-Iraqi Anas Altikriti, CEO of The Cordoba Foundation and the listed director of the Muslim Association of Britain, said the hostages would be “looked after” and “cared for” by Hamas. They had been abducted “in order to negotiate more freedoms, more rights, the breakout of this prison that we call Gaza, this concentration camp that we call Gaza,” he said.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Altikriti tweeted: “What did we think was going to happen? That Palestinians would stay silent whilst forever subjugated, victimised, abused, violated, murdered and tortured?!” He added: “This is for every time Western governments stayed silent and whitewashed Israel’s crimes and violations.”
In December 2023, Altikriti rejected the British government’s classification of Hamas as a terrorist group and further claimed: “Allegations of rape made by Israel are false. It’s a lie … Just like every other allegation made by Israel turns out to be a lie, including the mass slaughter of Israeli citizens on the 7th of October. That too was a lie.”
The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) told The Telegraph that Altikriti “does not speak for, nor represent the views of the MAB,” although the U.K. government’s register of companies lists him as a director of that group. MAB did not immediately reply to a query by JNS seeking clarification on this point.
Both MAB and The Cordoba Association have been accused of having ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including in a 2015 parliamentary report commissioned by the then-prime minister David Cameron.
“MAB has links to the Cordoba Foundation, a think tank which is associated with the Brotherhood (though claiming to be neither affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood nor a lobby organisation for it),” that report stated.