Mariam Appeal
Encyclopedia
The Mariam Appeal was a political campaign
Political campaign
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making process within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, wherein representatives are chosen or referendums are decided...

 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 (UK) established in 1998. The objects of the Appeal as stated in its constitution were: "to provide medicines, medical equipment and medical assistance to the people of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

; to highlight the causes and results of the cancer epidemic in Iraq and to arrange for the medical treatment of a number of Iraqi children outside Iraq". The campaign was founded by UK Member of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 George Galloway
George Galloway
George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...

. Princess Sarvath, wife of then Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan, was patron of the Appeal.

The Mariam Appeal was intended "to campaign against sanctions on Iraq which are having disastrous effects on the ordinary people of Iraq." The campaign was named after Mariam Hamza, a child flown by the fund from Iraq to Britain to receive treatment for leukaemia. The intention was to raise awareness of the suffering and death of tens of thousands of other Iraqi children due to poor health conditions and lack of suitable medicines and facilities, and to campaign for the lifting of the sanctions
Iraq sanctions
The Iraq sanctions were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the nation of Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 , and certain portions including reparations to Kuwait...

 seen by many as a direct cause of those problems.

Among the activities undertaken was a daily newsletter on sanctions, a sanctions-busting flight to Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

, the Big Ben
Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster
Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, and is generally extended to refer to the clock or the clock tower as well. It is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-standing clock tower in the world...

 to Baghdad trip in a red London bus
Routemaster
The AEC Routemaster is a model of double-decker bus that was built by Associated Equipment Company in 1954 and produced until 1968. Primarily front-engined, rear open-platform buses, a small number of variants were produced with doors and/or front entrances...

, meetings and conferences, the projection of an anti-war slogan on the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

, and the facilitating of trips to Iraq by dozens of journalists.

The fund received scrutiny during the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

, after a complaint that Galloway used some of the donation money to pay his travel expenses. Galloway, however, denied that he had misused any funds raised for the Mariam Appeal and pointed out that it was not unreasonable for money from a campaign fund to be used to pay for the travel expenses of campaigners.

Charity Commission investigation

The Mariam Appeal was investigated by the Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....

, although the appeal was not a registered charity. The report of this year-long inquiry was published in June 2004. It opened up the Mariam Appeal's bank account and revealed that the major funders to be the United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...

, a donor from Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

 and the Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

ian businessman Fawaz Zureikat
Fawaz Zureikat
Fawaz Abdullah Zureikat or Zuraiqat or Zurayqat and variations) was a wealthy Jordanian businessman.Zureikat was implicated in the United Nations Oil for Food scandal relating to corruption surrounding Iraq's oil exports. In the 2004 Duelfer Report Zureikat is identified as receiving oil...

 (later alleged to be implicated in the Oil-for-Food Programme
Oil-for-Food Programme
The Oil-for-Food Programme , established by the United Nations in 1995 was established with the stated intent to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military...

 scandal).

The Charity Commission found that the Mariam Appeal had done charitable work and raised significant funds, so should have registered with them and published accounts, taking the view that the legal advice the Appeal founders had taken that the constitution did not create a charity was wrong. It established that Dr. Amineh Abu-Zayyad
Amineh Abu-Zayyad
Dr. Amineh Abu-Zayyad is a Palestinian-born Arab and former wife of the former British Respect Member of Parliament George Galloway. Zayyad is a biologist by profession. She married Galloway in 1994 & a Civil marriage in 2000. They had met at a political meeting in Glasgow in 1991. "He was my...

 (a Muslim Palestinian, who became Galloway's wife from 2000 to 2005) and Stuart Halford, two of the original trustees, had received unauthorised benefits in the form of salary payments from the Appeal’s funds, although the executive committee considered these payments necessary and were unaware that they were unauthorised.

The Charity Commission did not find other evidence to support the allegations that funds had been misused. Some of the Appeal's books and records had been sent to Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...

 and Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

 in 2001 when Fawaz Zuriekat took over as Chairman of the Appeal and could not now be located. The Appeal had not produced annual profit and loss accounts or balance sheets.

The Charity Commission took the view that the political activities of the Appeal were ancillary to the charitable purposes of the Appeal and that the Trustees could reasonably have formed the view that this would have the impact of enabling treatment for sick children.

As the Appeal was by this time closed, full records were unavailable, that the founders believed on legal advice that they had not created a charity, and there was no evidence that the funds of the Appeal were misapplied (other than for salaries), the Charity Commission decided to take no further action other than informing the Trustees of their mistakes.

The UK Parliament's standards commission launched an independent investigation, found that "there was “strong circumstantial evidence” that Galloway had asked the Iraqi government to help fund the Mariam Appeal’s campaigning for the lifting of economic sanctions on Iraq" and recommended that George Galloway be suspended for 18 days.

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