Opinion - Libby Purves

Opinion - Libby Purves:
snip snip>( Please note that this an excerpt)
" do not think we should complacently assume that this is a one-off. This loss of �30,000 to the ICR proves that. There are plenty of other single-issue fanatics who will be encouraged to target charities: trustees have got to decide how to meet this threat. It may be for us, the public, robustly to inform charities that if they cave in to blackmail, the rest of us will turn our backs. Two years ago was another troubling case: Oxfam�s refusal of �5,000 from Professor Ted Honderich of University College London, whose book examined the morality of Islamist attacks and included a paragraph asserting the �terrible truth� that there may be justification in some Palestinian violence. Oxfam defended its refusal of the money with strong words about the value of all life; Professor Honderich believes that it was scared by a threat from a Canadian newspaper to run a piece saying it took money from terrorist sympathisers. Muslim organisations have attacked the charity over this; it is complex, and worth looking up in more detail than I can offer here. "