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An Iranian government official personally sanctioned by Canada over policies violating women’s rights, including compulsory veiling, is scheduled to keynote a December 13 conference on artificial intelligence and “Islamophobia” in London. Professor Saeid Reza Ameli, a former senior Iranian policymaker and longtime director of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), will address an event organized by the same organization, whose associated charity is under investigation by British regulators.
Ameli is among three keynote speakers advertised for the conference at London’s P21 Gallery. Other speakers include Sandew Hira, a longtime IHRC collaborator with documented relationships involving sanctioned Iranian institutions, and Ramón Grosfoguel, a University of California, Berkeley scholar who previously denied Hamas’s attacks against Israeli civilians during the October 7 massacre.
The conference’s promotional description amplifies the fabricated claim that Gaza is the “world’s first AI-assisted genocide,” alleging that Israel has used artificial intelligence for the “maximized infliction of casualties.” It further speculates that Western governments have tolerated Israel’s military campaign to learn how to use AI in their own “projects of violence,” while claiming that efforts are underway to “embed and institutionalise Islamophobia.”
Canadian-Sanctioned Official and Former IHRC Director
Ameli served as secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution between 2019 and 2023. The powerful Iranian policymaking institution oversees cultural and educational policy, including policies concerning compulsory hijab. In October 2022, The Times reported on Ameli’s simultaneous roles in Iran’s cultural policymaking apparatus and IHRC, which provided regulated immigration advice in Britain. The investigation linked Ameli to stricter compulsory-hijab regulations as nationwide protests erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by Iran’s morality police.
United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) documented that Ameli’s council developed stricter mandatory-veiling regulations in 2019.
On February 23, 2023, Canada formally sanctioned Ameli under his full name, Seyed Saied Reza Ameli Renani, as part of measures responding to “gross and systematic human rights violations” in Iran. The Canadian government’s regulatory statement described the head of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution as a “chief proponent of policies that violate women’s rights, like compulsory veiling.” Ameli appears as entry 76 in Canada’s sanctions regulations, which prohibit Canadians and persons in Canada from specified financial dealings with him.
Britain subsequently sanctioned the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution in July 2023, citing its involvement in serious human-rights violations through mandatory dress-code enforcement, including the use of unreasonable force against women deemed noncompliant.
Ameli’s government responsibilities also extended into Iran’s internet censorship apparatus. In September 2015, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed him to the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, the country’s principal internet policymaking authority. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned the council in January 2018 for overseeing internet restrictions, including the blocking of international news outlets, opposition websites and social media platforms. Britain also designated the cyberspace council in July 2023.
Ameli has also been identified as a former member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Iranian human-rights organization Justice for Iran identifies him as having served as a deputy brigade commander during the 1980s. In a March 2023 post, Kasra Aarabi, Director of IRGC Research at UANI, shared a photograph he identified as showing Ameli seated beside Hossein Salami, then commander-in-chief of the IRGC.
British Companies House records establish that Ameli served as a director of Islamic Human Rights Commission Ltd from August 1, 2006, until December 28, 2022. His sixteen-year tenure overlapped with his appointment to Iran’s cyberspace council and his leadership of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.
IHRC Under British Government Scrutiny
The organization hosting Ameli has itself faced repeated scrutiny over its relationship with Tehran. On March 11, 2026, British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told Parliament that IHRC was an organization “closely associated with the Iranian regime.” Her remarks accompanied a decision to prohibit an Al-Quds Day procession organized by IHRC because of public-order concerns.
The 2023 government-commissioned Prevent review, conducted by William Shawcross, similarly characterized IHRC as an Islamist organization ideologically aligned with Tehran, citing its history of “extremist links and terrorist sympathies.”
More recently, the Charity Commission announced a statutory investigation into the separately registered Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust in October 2025. The inquiry examines the charity’s financing of a related non-charitable company, including support for publications and events. In a March 30, 2026 parliamentary answer, the British government explicitly identified IHRC Trust among three charities under statutory investigation involving alleged links to Iran.
The trust’s 2025 accounts record £481,431 in grants to IHRC Ltd for the year ending June 2025, establishing an ongoing funding relationship between the entities. In March 2026, IHRC published a statement praising the late Ayatollah Khamenei as a “rare role model” following his death.
The conference venue, P21 Gallery, is itself a registered British charity with a history of hosting events involving organizations designated or outlawed by Israel over Hamas connections. In June 2022, it hosted a conference organized in cooperation with EuroPal Forum, which Israel had designated a terrorist organization in August 2021 over its alleged role in supporting Hamas. The gallery also hosted a December 2021 exhibition organized by the Palestinian Return Centre, which Israel outlawed in 2010 over alleged Hamas links. An earlier IHRC conference at P21 in 2016 listed the Islamic Centre of England, identified by the British government as the Iranian supreme leader’s official religious representative in Britain, among its supporting organizations.
Sandew Hira’s Iranian Institutional Connections
Another keynote speaker, Dutch-Surinamese writer Sandew Hira, has a longstanding relationship with IHRC and Ameli that extends into Iranian institutions. In a 2025 essay, Hira described his close relationship with IHRC chairman Massoud Shadjareh, explaining that Shadjareh introduced him to Ameli. He characterized Ameli as an influential Iranian intellectual close to the supreme leader and described subsequent collaborations involving the University of Tehran.
One such collaboration took place in May 2024, when Hira delivered an address at the Fifth Global Congress of Imam Reza in Mashhad, Iran. Hira’s original conference paper identifies Astan Quds Razavi, the University of Tehran and Sharif University of Technology as the institutions that invited him. Astan Quds Razavi, the powerful religious and economic foundation overseeing the Imam Reza shrine, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in January 2021 for being controlled by Iran’s supreme leader.
In his address, Hira expressly thanked Ameli for his advice and acknowledged years of collaboration with IHRC figures Massoud Shadjareh and Arzu Merali. The relationship continued into publishing in 2025, when the University of Tehran published a Persian edition of Hira’s Decolonizing the Mind, featuring a foreword written by Ameli.
Hira has also publicly praised the leadership of Iran and the Houthis. In a March 2026 address prepared for a Yemen-based conference, he commemorated the “martyrdom” of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and expressed his “deep appreciation” for the support given by Yemenis under Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi movement.
Hira subsequently announced his remote participation in a September 2026 conference in Houthi-controlled Sana’a, attended by senior Houthi government officials and featuring praise for the movement's leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
Berkeley Professor Denied Hamas’s October 7 Attacks on Civilians
Another advertised panellist, University of California, Berkeley scholar Ramón Grosfoguel, falsely denied Hamas’s attacks against Israeli civilians during the October 7 massacre.
In a February 2024 essay published by IHRC, Grosfoguel falsely claimed that, according to Israeli witnesses, “Hamas did not attack the civilian population,” while portraying accounts of the massacre as a media-manipulation campaign. His essay also praised the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance,” referencing attacks against Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
FEMYSO Representative and Muslim Brotherhood Controversy
The speaker lineup also includes Alexandra Darby, who has served as AI and Digital Rights Lead for the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO). Darby has represented FEMYSO in European AI-policy discussions, including the organization’s campaign examining alleged anti-Muslim bias in artificial intelligence systems.
Her organizational affiliation comes amid renewed scrutiny of FEMYSO’s purported links to Muslim Brotherhood networks. On October 8, 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for stronger measures against Islamist influence operations and Muslim Brotherhood networks within European institutions.
The resolution specifically identified FEMYSO among organizations described as linked to the Council of European Muslims and called for restrictions on their access to EU institutions, events and the EU Transparency Register.
Other Advertised Speakers
The December conference’s other keynote speaker is Dr Shereen Fernandez, a researcher examining British counterterrorism policies, surveillance and Muslim communities. The remaining advertised panellists are Syed Mustafa Ali, Shaf Choudry, Dr Khadijah ElShayyal, João Silva Jordão and Laurens de Rooij.