A charity boss who was cancelled for “Islamophobic” posts has won a landmark legal case, successfully overturning his ban in a major free speech victory. The Telegraph has the story.
The Charity Commission made a disqualification order against Gary Mond in 2023, after a handful of historical “anti-Muslim” posts on social media were brought to light.
The commission’s decision has now been quashed on appeal.
It is the first time the commission has had a disqualification order overturned.
Mr Mond, who is Jewish, was a trustee of the Jewish National Fund UK (JNF UK), which describes itself as “Britain’s oldest Israel charity”, for 12 years before the commission said it was investigating his posts.
The commission disqualified Mr Mond from acting as a charity trustee or senior manager for two and a half years because it said his online activity could have brought the charities he worked with into disrepute. …
While the tribunal said some of Mr Mond’s social media activity could be “perceived as anti-Islam”, it agreed that “Mr Mond has the right to freedom of expression”.
It also agreed that the online posts in question, dating from 2014 to 2021, did not constitute “the conduct of someone who is unfit” to be a trustee.
In one such post, Mr Mond said that if a significant number of Muslims were elected as Labour MPs “the Britain that we knew will have gone forever”. …
Mr Mond, who spent over £60,000 on his appeal, has consistently rejected any suggestion that he is “Islamophobic”.
The tribunal found the Commission’s order to disqualify Mr Mond to be undesirable “in order to protect public trust and confidence in charities generally”. …
Mr Mond told the Telegraph: “The outcome of this case, which was an appalling waste of both taxpayers’ money and my own, says infinitely more about the Charity Commission than it does about me.”
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