January 25, 2006
Suit Backing Muslim Scholar Challenges Part of Patriot Act
By JULIA PRESTON
Citing the case of a prominent Swiss Muslim scholar who has been barred from the United States, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit today seeking to strike down a clause of the USA Patriot Act that bans foreigners who endorse terrorist activity from traveling to this country.
The suit was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan on behalf of the scholar, Tariq Ramadan, and three national organizations of academics or writers who have invited him to speak to their members. The groups, including the American Academy of Religion, the largest American organization of scholars of religion, say Mr. Ramadan has never expressed support for terrorism, and they argue that the Patriot Act clause has been applied to stifle political and academic debate in the United States.
Mr. Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, has been denied a United States visa since July 2004, when he was on the verge of moving with his family to Indiana to take up a tenured professor's position at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. In a telephone interview on Tuesday from his office in Britain, Mr. Ramadan said he has never been given a formal explanation why his visa was revoked, after he had traveled frequently to the United States for many years.
Speaking to reporters in August 2004, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Russ Knocke, cited the Patriot Act clause as the reason why Mr. Ramadan's visa was canceled. The clause, adopted with the original act in October 2001 and amended last May, bars foreigners who "endorse or espouse terrorist activity or persuade others" to support terrorism.
Mr. Ramadan has been outspokenly critical of the Bush administration's policies in the Middle East. But he said he had also openly criticized Muslim terrorists. Last year, he was invited by Prime Minister Tony Blair to participate in a task force to counter extremism after the London bombings in July.
The A.C.L.U., joined by the New York Civil Liberties Union, brought the suit against the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, contending that the Patriot Act clause is unconstitutional and the ban on Mr. Ramadan violates the First Amendment rights of American scholars who want to meet with him.
After Notre Dame had applied twice for a visa for Mr. Ramadan and he waited in limbo for five months with no response, he resigned in December 2004 from the Notre Dame position. He filed a new visa application last Sept. 16, seeking permission to respond to some of about 40 invitations for speaking engagements in the United States he has received in the last two years. At an interview in December in the United States embassy in Bern, Switzerland, Mr. Ramadan said he was mainly questioned by American agents about his views of the war in Iraq.
"It's clear there is nothing in my record supporting terrorism," said Mr. Ramadan, who is now a visiting professor at Oxford University. "I told them what I have said many times publicly, that I think the war was a mistake and illegal. I think the resistance is legitimate, but the means they are using are not."
The State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department had no immediate comment.
Barbara DeConcini, the executive director of the American Academy of Religion, described Mr. Ramadan as "one of the most respected scholars of Islam working today." After he was barred from giving a keynote address at the group's annual meeting in November, he was invited again to speak this year. "We believe the government has the authority and must exclude terrorists, but we also believe this clause is being used much more broadly to censor and manipulate academic debate," she said.
