DAR AL HARB - U.S.A.: THE ACLU RESUMES ITS FIGHT ON BEHALF OF TARIQ RAMADAN

ACLU Renews Legal Challenge to Exclusion of Islamic Scholar From U.S. Soil

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a new legal complaint challenging the federal government’s continued exclusion of a prominent Swiss scholar, Tariq Ramadan, from the United States. The complaint also challenges a provision of the USA Patriot Act that, the ACLU says, authorizes the government to deny visas to foreign citizens on the basis of their political views.

The new complaint adds to a lawsuit filed in 2006 by the ACLU, which said that the government was preventing professors and others from meeting with Mr. Ramadan and from hearing constitutionally protected speech. Mr. Ramadan, a leading European expert on contemporary Islam who was profiled in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, had also been set to take up a teaching post at the University of Notre Dame in 2004, when his entry into the United States was barred. At the time, federal authorities invoked the Patriot Act’s “ideological exclusion” provision, which applies to those who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism, although when challenged in court, the authorities never presented evidence backing up the accusations.

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Pertinent Links:

1) ACLU Renews Legal Challenge to Exclusion of Islamic Scholar From U.S. Soil