UK Media Claims Amazon's Program Supporting Charity Led By Radical Scholar

The Times newspaper reported Monday that Amazon was supporting a UK charity, the Muslim Research and Development Foundation (MRDF), whose founder appears to embrace such ideas as female subjugation.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th October, 2018) The Times newspaper reported Monday that Amazon was supporting a UK charity, the Muslim Research and Development Foundation (MRDF), whose founder appears to embrace such ideas as female subjugation.

The MRDF is part of retailer giant's AmazonSmile program, which donates 0.5 percent of the order price to a charity of the customer's choice.

According to the newspaper, MRDF founder and former chairman Haitham Haddad has expressed view that husbands can hit their wives, western women should wear niqab, and homosexuality is a crime.

Haddad has reportedly remained active as the representative of the organization despite stepping down from the board in 2014. The scholar campaigned for it as recently as in August, the daily said.

At the same time, Haddad has spoken out against jihadist terrorist attacks in the West and the attempts of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) to recruit young UK Muslims.

A spokesman for Haddad told the newspaper the scholar protested the attempts to portray him as "an extremist hate preacher," adding that his words were often taken out of context.

The organization itself has reportedly stressed that it champions non-violence.

The UK charity regulator said it would look into any potential grounds for concern regarding the charity. Amazon told the newspaper that it relied on the Charity Commission's guidance in allowing the MRDF to join AmazonSmile.