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King Fahd had okayed the establishment of the new body
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RIYADH,
February 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - To continue
helping Muslims across the globe and also shield itself against
alleged charges of funding funding, Saudi Arabia has decided to create
a body that will exclusively run charity work abroad.
The
establishment of the new body, Saudi Civil Council for Relief and
Charity Work Overseas, has already been okayed by King Fahd Bin Abdel
Aziz, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A
royal decree said the council "would be set up and run by a group
of citizens involved in charity work and renowned for their
experience, integrity and good reputation."
It
would have the exclusive authority over "all charity and welfare
activities overseas," said a royal court statement carried by the
official SPA news agency.
The
decision, noted the statement, would enable the Saudi people to
"continue assisting their Muslim brethren everywhere" in
keeping with Islamic teachings while shielding Saudi welfare work from
attempts to tarnish its reputation.
The
council would announce its statutes and modus operandi as soon as the
procedures of its establishment are completed "within the next
few weeks," it added.
The
Saudi government had recently decided to lay down "clear rules to
regulate Saudi welfare work outside the kingdom," said the royal
statement.
The
head of Al-Haramain
charity was dismissed last month by the Saudi minister of Islamic
affairs.
This
came after the U.S. and Saudi Arabia acted jointly to block the assets
of four overseas branches of Al-Haramain over charges of
"diverting charitable funds to terrorist activities."
Last
October, newspapers said the government had banned fund-raising in
schools and via the media in fresh moves to regulate charitable
operations.
This
followed a similar ban on fund-raising in markets and shopping malls.
Saudi
Arabia boasts more than 230 non-profit societies which raise about one
billion riyals (267 million dollars) annually.
Washington
has been laying huge pressures on Arab and Islamic countries,
particularly Saudi Arabia, to regulate charity operations, arguing
that funds usually end up in the hands of "terrorists".
In
August, thousands of Palestinian orphans and destitute families took
to the streets of Palestinian cities to protest freezing
the bank accounts of 18 charities suspected of having links with the
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
The
move came hard on the heels of a White House decision to
freeze the assets of six Hamas leaders and five
pro-Palestinians charities in Europe and Lebanon.
The
British charity regulator had frozen the assets of Interpal, a
non-governmental organization collecting money to help Palestinian
children and homeless, after Bush claimed it is linked to
"terrorism."
However,
weeks of investigations by the main British regulator Charity
Commission gave the group a clean bill of health, as Washington failed
to provide evidence of the accusations.
Muslim
charities in other western countries share the feeling that they
are targeted by intrusive investigations and unjustifiable
accusations.
