Harris Bokhari

Harris Bokhari was appointed as first honorary patron of The Prince's Trust Mosaic Network,[26] where he is a National Advisory Board member.[27] In 2013, he was among thirty-three philanthropists honoured by the Beacon Awards for collectively giving more than £100m to charitable causes. He was awarded the Beacon Award for Philanthropy Advocate for raising £1 million within 12 months for various charities working in deprived communities in the UK.[28]

Bokhari is also founder of the Naz Legacy Foundation,[29] which was established in honour of the legacy of his father, Naz Bokhari, the first Muslim secondary school head-teacher in Britain.[30] The Naz Legacy Foundation received Prime Minister David Cameron's Big Society Award in 2014.[31]

Bokhari's interfaith work has included organising the first ever engagement event between national community, women and youth leaders from the Jewish and Muslim communities meeting with the new Chief Rabbi in Finchley Kinloss Synagogue. He was one of the first Muslims to be invited to the Chief Rabbi's installation ceremony.[26] He also organised the first youth interfaith iftar at Lambeth Palace, which brought together the Archbishop of Canterbury, Chief Rabbi, Mayor of London and over 100 youth leaders from each of London's boroughs.[29]

Bokhari was awarded an OBE in the 2015 Birthday Honours, and was listed as an 'Equality Champion' in the Evening Standard's Progress 1000 list of most influential Londoners.[32] He also won the Alija Izetbegovic Award for Good Citizenship from The Muslim News Awards in 2016.[33]

Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote praised Bokhari's work "for his services to young people and interfaith... With his easy charm and steely determination Bokhari can call upon the top political figures to talk to the young men and women on his schemes. He's even become an ambassador for the HRH Prince Charles. Well done Harris, your father, who also received an OBE, would be deeply proud of his son."[34]

In 2002, Bokhari organised protests in London, attended by thousands of people "to express their solidarity with the Palestinians and against Israel's ongoing military operations in the West Bank."[41]

In 2019, Bokhari organized the first inter-faith Iftar with the Chief Rabbi at St John's Wood synagogue. It resulted in a number of synagogues across London organising their own Iftars. Bokhari reportedly said: "We need to call out all forms of prejudice and racism in society and it is important we speak out against anti- semitism in the same way we have to speak out against Islamophobia."[42]

Bokhari told the Socialist Worker: "We have been saying that British foreign policy is a problem since day one, even before the war in Afghanistan...and it is not just Muslims saying this. The two million who marched against war in Iraq were not majority Muslim. The 100,000 that marched against the war in Lebanon and Gaza are not majority Muslim. The Chatham House foreign policy research institute has been saying it. A lot of people up and down the country are very upset about Britain's foreign policy. We would be ignoring our moral duty if we did not speak out. And it's very naive for ministers to say that this not a problem."[43]

Bokhari was asked by the BBC about his reaction to a British government proposal to incorporate teaching of "core British values" into citizenship classes in schools to help "tackle extremism and discrimination." Bokhari said "this is just another one of those knee-jerk reactions where we're not actually looking at the core problem. What was the reason why these people actually committed these disgusting acts? Unfortunately it was our foreign policy, it was the issue of the illegal war, the illegal occupation of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the continuing abuses of the Palestinian people, the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israeli state. So I think until the government actually addresses these issues unfortunately we'll keep on having these problems in the UK particularly."[44]

Bokhari was interviewed following the publication and distribution of the Danish cartoons of Muhammed, concerning calls by Muslim groups to boycott the West. Bokhari said: 'We live in a democratic society and have the right to choose what we buy. International companies have an influence over governments and the media, and can also influence global politics. They have to understand that if they're going to cause offence, then we're not going to buy their products." Bokhari believed the boycott will spread to products made in other countries, and predicts Germany will be next, after several newspapers defended their right to publish the cartoons.[45]

In 2010, according to The New Yorker, Bokhari told a group of British Muslims in the Tooting constituency to vote for Labour Party candidate Sadiq Khan instead of Liberal Democrat candidate Nasser Butt, a member of the Ahmadiyya. "The majority of Muslims in this area are voting Lib Dem, because they think Nasser Butt is a Muslim," Bokhari told a room of Muslim voters as the reason why they should not vote for Butt. "You need to go into the community and take these posters down…. All you need to do is just look for Sadiq Khan, Labour Party, and just tick it… Whatever else you vote is up to you." Bokhari later told the author that he does not remember the meeting.[46]

In 2017, Bokhari talked about his work with young people from minority faith communities who face prejudices, including youth in the Ahmadiyya community.[47] In 2019, he wrote in The Independent[48] and the Evening Standard[49] calling out the prejudice and hatred towards the Ahmadiyya community.

In November 2019, Bokhari visited the Baitul Futuh Mosque and was welcomed by their Head of External Relations. They discussed their work in bringing communities together.[50]