Funding cut for UK advocacy group that tried to help ‘Jihadi John’

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Roddick Foundation – set up by the late Body Shop founder Anita Roddick – have stopped funding a rights group that was in contact with a man described as Islamic State group executioner “Jihadi John”. The rights group, Cage, describes its work as supporting people arrested or raided as a result of the “war on terror” following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. It worked with Mohammed Emwazi, identified by the Washington Post as Jihadi John last week, for over two years.

In the light of regulatory pressure and to protect the interests of all our grantees and the other work of the trust, we have decided to publicly confirm that we will not fund Cage either now or in the future.

Statement issued by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust

The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust said in a statement that it had come under “intense regulatory pressure” to cease funding Cage. Cage spokesman Amandla Thomas-Johnson said it respected the charities’ decisions and thanked them for their past support. Cage’s research director Asim Qureshi last week said Emwazi as a “beautiful young man” and blamed British intelligence for radicalising him. That claim was described as “reprehensible” by Prime Minister David Cameron’s official spokesman.

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