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Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, by Caroline Fourest; foreword by Denis MacShane (Encounter Books, 262 pp., $23.95) In the 1990s, Western liberals, alarmed at the presence of Islamic fundamentalists in their midst, turned in desperation to Muslims whom they dubbed “reformers” or “modernizers.” They hoped that these figures would have a moderating influence on disaffected Muslim youths who refused to integrate into Western society. One such “reformer” is Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-born academic. Ramadan has won the confidence of many in the West, including the British government, which asked him to serve on its task force for...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge on Thursday upheld a government decision to refuse a prominent Swiss Muslim entry into the United States, saying the question of denying visas was best left to the authorities. The United States had revoked the visa of Tariq Ramadan, an academic at Britain's Oxford University and a vocal critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its support of Israel. The State Department initially gave no reason, but later said Ramadan had been barred under a provision of the USA Patriot Act that bars anyone who endorses terrorism. In October the American...

AS the father of a terror victim, I can no longer be shocked by much. And as a New Jerseyan, I'm used to strange goings-on in my state's government. But I was shocked and surprised to I learn that John L. Esposito will be a featured speaker at next week's state Department of Homeland Security confernce on counterterrorism. Esposito teaches at Georgetown University in its His Royal Highness Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. To get a sense of the center's purpose, recall that bin Talal is the Saudi prince who shortly after 9/11 blamed the attacks on...

“Moderate” Muslim Tariq Ramadan was detained, charged and ordered to trial in France after insulting a police officer Tariq Ramadan, the so-called “moderate” Islamic “intellectual”, was briefly detained and charged for “insulting a public agent” on Sunday at Paris Roissy Charles de Gaulle International Airport, while in transit to London. From informed police sources, we have learned that when Ramadan tried to enter a prohibited area, a young policewoman stopped him. He began shouting at her and was then taken into police custody; the officer filed a complaint against him. While in custody, he admitted the offense and was ordered...

ON SEPTEMBER 20, the State Department denied a visa to Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan on the grounds that he had contributed around 600 euros to a French charity classified as a terrorist organization since 2003 because of its relationship with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. This latest exclusion follows on the revocation of Ramadan's visa to live and work in the United States while teaching at Notre Dame in 2004, a step taken at the express request of the Department of Homeland Security. While the American Civil Liberties Union and the leftist literary group PEN, among others, present Ramadan as...

For more than two years now, the U.S. government has barred me from entering the United States to pursue an academic career... First, I was told that I could not enter the country because I had endorsed terrorism and violated the USA Patriot Act. It took a lawsuit for the government eventually to abandon this baseless accusation. Later, I reapplied for a visa, twice, only to hear nothing for more than a year. Finally, just 10 days ago, after a federal judge forced the State Department to reconsider my application, U.S. authorities offered a new rationale for turning me away:...

The critical climate towards Islam in the Netherlands has significantly contributed to radicalisation among Dutch Muslim youth. That is the conclusion reached by the authors of a report commissioned by Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk about the worldviews of radical and democratic Muslims in the Netherlands. After the murder of Theo van Gogh in November 2004, the Dutch parliament asked Minister Verdonk to investigate why Muslims born in the Netherlands opt for radical Islam. Professor Frank Buijs and two other researchers from the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES) conducted thorough research on the political orientation of young Dutch...

Watching the ball drop, twirling a noisemaker, kissing your sweetheart, and making a resolution that rarely comes to pass -- everyone looks forward to the memory of a new year. But one group will be ringing in the New Year a little differently…through a children’s jihad retreat, with a guest speaker who exalts terrorists and another who is linked to al-Qaeda. The majority of Islamic organizations within the United States have, at one time or another, been cited for their connections to terrorism, whether by support of terror groups or through actual terrorist activity carried out by its members. Two...

The U. S. State Department is still trying to figure out who granted the foreign secretary of the Taliban a visa that enables him to take classes at Yale, where he is now a freshman. At the same time, the State Department stands by the decision of its former chief, Colin Powell, who refused to grant a work visa to a professor from abroad whom Notre Dame wanted to hire. That professor would be Tariq Ramadan, whose grandfather founded the parent group of Hamas. Given the precedent set by the Taliban vet who is now a Son of Eli, the...

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge said he is troubled by government delays in deciding whether a Muslim scholar can enter the United States and may order authorities to make a decision. A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union accuses the government of manipulating the Patriot Act to try to silence Tariq Ramadan, who has been invited to speak in the United States later this month and twice later this year. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty said the State Department seemed to be taking a long time to act on a request by Ramadan last August...

Christian Europe is at risk of becoming Eurabia, outbred and overtaken by Islamic immigration, and a crucial battleground on the clash of civilizations that seems to be under way. [...] This alarmist view is fueled by three dangerous and misleading myths [...] that there is any such phenomenon as European Islam[;] that the native Europeans have been so sapped of their reproductive vigor that the higher birth rates of the Muslim immigrants threaten to replace traditionally Christian Europe[;] that this great wave of immigration is necessarily an ominous challenge to Christian Europe...

Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws - namely, the Patriot Act - to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans. The practice, called ideological exclusion, became illegal in 1990. But a recent lawsuit - brought by the American Association of University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the PEN American Center under the Freedom of Information Act - is asking the Bush administration to explain its decisions to revoke or deny...

Blair backs banned Muslim scholar Vikram Dodd Wednesday August 31, 2005 The Guardian A Muslim scholar accused by critics of sympathising with violence has been appointed to a government taskforce attempting to root out Islamic extremism in Britain, the Guardian has learned. Professor Tariq Ramadan has been banned from entering the United States and France because of his alleged views supporting violence, allegations he strongly denies. He faced a campaign of vilification from rightwing British newspapers, and last night some saw his inclusion on the group as evidence of the government's willingness to stand up to the tabloids. The taskforce,...

London, August 27: A Muslim scholar banned from the United States is to take up a post at Britain's prestigious University of Oxford, his college said today. Tariq Ramadan has been elected to a visiting fellowship (general) at St Antony's College for the coming academic year and is expected to begin work in October. "Professor Ramadan is an internationally-recognised scholar," St Antony's College, Oxford, said in a statement. "He was named by Time magazine as one of 100 innovators of the 21st century for his work on creating an independent European Islam. "He was recently appointed to a prestigious chair...

Catholic universities in the United States have in recent years shown a weakness for cultivating far-leftist anti-Semites and haters of America. Perhaps the best known has been Notre Dame, home of the extremist Kroc Institute, which attempted to sponsor Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Arab with ties to Al Qaeda, for a three-year professorship. But in many ways, DePaul University is even worse. DePaul is a large, if not particularly academically renowned, Catholic college in Chicago, nominally associated with “Congregation of the Mission,” more popularly known as the Vincentians. Until recently, the main cause of controversy surrounding DePaul was its insistence...

GENEVA, January 2 (IslamOnline.net) – No sooner had Swiss Muslims launched campaigns to clear stereotypes and enter into dialogues to reach out to the non-Muslim citizens during 2004 than right-wing media and newspapers threw a spanner in the earnest works. Swiss Muslims, however, remained determined to ride out the storm and demonstrate to the public that they were an integral part of society. The right-wing, in a nutshell, failed to break their staunch stamina. Day in and day out, headlines like “The Islamic Terror is Coming, “Country Vs. Radicalism”, “Islamists Living With Us,” “Hijab in Parliament” and “Swiss Funds for...

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- A Muslim scholar who was to teach at the University of Notre Dame until his U.S. work visa was revoked because of security concerns has resigned his appointment, the school said today. Tariq Ramadan notified the university on Monday, citing the stress on him and his family from the uncertainty of their situation as the reason for his resignation, said R. Scott Appleby, director of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. "I'm abandoning the idea of moving to the United States," Ramadan told The Associated Press. "I want to maintain my dignity." Ramadan, whose...

A Muslim scholar scheduled to teach at the University of Notre Dame next August has decided not to move to the United States. Tariq Ramadan's work visa was revoked as he was getting his family ready to move to the United States. Ramadan has denied accusations he has ties to Islamic militants. Ramadan said the stress on the uncertainty of his family's situation is the reason for his resignation. Ramadan has been teaching in Switzerland, and has gained a popular following among European Muslims.

Feeding the crocodiles By Jonathan Spyer The internal peace of the democracies of western Europe is no longer assured. It is threatened by the growing presence, and growing confidence, of the organizations, activists and spokesmen of radical Islam. This is a phenomenon rarely remarked upon in Israel. It may yet have serious and damaging effects on European views of the Middle East conflict. Observe: In July 2004, Ken Livingstone, mayor of London and a Labor Party member, hosted Imam Yusuf Qaradawi on a visit to the city. Qaradawi, an Egyptian with a Muslim Brotherhood background, is a resident of Qatar...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A Muslim scholar whose visa to teach at the University of Notre Dame was revoked shortly before the start of the school year has roused the support of Christians and Muslims who say he would add a valuable voice to religious understanding. Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Islamic theologian, was to have started work at the Catholic university in Indiana in August. In February, he was issued an H-1B visa, a category reserved for professionals. In late July, after his family had already shipped their belongings to Indiana, the State Department revoked the visa and told Ramadan he...

CAIRO, September 22 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – US authorities have denied entry to British Muslim activist Yusuf Islam, formerly known as pop singer Cat Stevens, a move expected to drew ire of British Muslims, who condemned it as outrageous and racist. “This is a strategy by Washington targeting Muslim activists in the West, as no reasons were cited for the decision to deny him access to the country – let alone the fact that Islam is a moderate activist,” Kamal El-Helbawy, a London-based political expert, told IslamOnline.net Wednesday, September 22. A London-to-Washington flight carrying Islam was forced to be...

It's not every day that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revokes a visa issued to a Swiss-national scholar scheduled to teach at one of America's premier universities. But this has just happened, and it's a good thing too. The Swiss scholar is Tariq Ramadan. He is Islamist royalty – his maternal grandfather, Hasan al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood, probably the single most powerful Islamist institution of the twentieth century, in Egypt in 1928. Tariq is a Swiss citizen because his father, Sa‘id Ramadan, also a leading Islamist, fled from Egypt in 1954 following a crackdown on the brotherhood. Sa‘id...

It's not every day that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revokes a visa issued to a Swiss-national scholar scheduled to teach at one of America's premier universities. But this has just happened, and it's a good thing too. The Swiss scholar is Tariq Ramadan. He is Islamist royalty – his maternal grandfather, Hasan al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood, probably the single most powerful Islamist institution of the twentieth century, in Egypt in 1928. Tariq is a Swiss citizen because his father, Sa‘id Ramadan, also a leading Islamist, fled from Egypt in 1954 following a crackdown on the brotherhood. Sa‘id...

Homeland Security is revoking a visa issued to a man Time magazine named as one of the world's top hundred scientists and thinkers. But the State Department is encouraging him to reapply in a different manner. It's not every day that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revokes a visa issued to a Swiss-national scholar scheduled to teach at one of America's premier universities. But this has just happened, and it's a good thing too. The Swiss scholar is Tariq Ramadan. He is Islamist royalty - his maternal grandfather (Hasan al-Banna) founded the Muslim Brotherhood, probably the single most...

Is Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss born Muslim professor whose grandfather founded the Egyptian Brotherhood, a “moderate” or a “radical”? According to SwissInfo, His elder brother, Hani, director of Geneva’s Islamic centre, was fired from his public teaching job after he told a French newspaper that stoning a woman for adultery was acceptable.Ramadan has so far only called for a moratorium on stoning. Now this is perfect. Ramadan, in calling for a moratorium on stoning, would appear to some people (including Notre Dame which hired him) as a “moderate” Muslim. But of course he hasn’t renounced stoning as such. How could...

SOUTH BEND, Indiana – Citing national security interests, the U.S. government has revoked the work visa of a Muslim scholar from Switzerland who had been scheduled to teach at the University of Notre Dame this fall. Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who has been criticized for alleged links to Islamic militants and for remarks branded anti-Semitic, was supposed to begin teaching on Tuesday, the first day of the fall semester. "This is unjustified," Ramadan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. He charged the revocation was "coming from political pressure." Russ Knocke, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman,...

SOUTH BEND — Tariq Ramadan, an internationally recognized Islamic scholar, is supposed to begin teaching a course this week at the University of Notre Dame. Instead, he is home in Switzerland, hoping to regain a visa that has been revoked by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It’s the latest chapter in the saga of Ramadan, who is considered a moderate Islamic voice by some and an Islamic extremist to his critics. “We are deeply disappointed and concerned,” Notre Dame spokesman Matthew Storin said Tuesday. University officials learned about two weeks ago that there was a problem with Ramadan’s visa...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has revoked a visa granted to Tariq Ramadan, a renowned Islamic scholar who is accused by some Jewish groups of being a Muslim extremist, effectively barring him from a teaching post he was to begin this week at the University of Notre Dame.

Paris (CNSNews.com) - A Swiss-born Muslim scholar scheduled to begin teaching at a U.S. university next month is a controversial figure in Europe, where he is accused of anti-Semitism and advocating violence against women. Tariq Ramadan plans to teach at Indiana's Notre Dame University, instructing students on Islam, conflict and peace building. Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, the Egyptian founder of the radical Muslim Brotherhood. With a perfect command of the language and a tailored western look, he is well-known in France, where disaffected Muslim youths listen to his speeches on Islamic pride. But some municipalities have barred...

Middle Eastern hatreds poison left-wing political life 18.11.2003By CATHERINE FIELD Herald correspondent PARIS - Once they squabbled over who was pro-Soviet and who was not. Now, French leftwingers are split just as deeply by a new wedge: Islam. One of the biggest leftwing conferences in years, the European Social Forum (ESF), gathering tens of thousands of people, ended in bitter discord at the weekend over a speaking invitation to a leading Muslim intellectual accused by Jewish groups of anti-Semitism. Several political parties boycotted his appearance, which was loudly applauded by an audience of a thousand. Some political leaders attended reluctantly;...

<p>To his admirers, Tariq Ramadan is Europe's leading advocate of liberal Islam.To his detractors, he's a dangerous theocrat in disguise.</p> <p>WHEN TARIQ RAMADAN delivers a lecture, the room is invariably packed to capacity. Afterwards, dozens of young Muslim men are likely to throng the stage, seeking his definitive guidance on everything from veiling to animal rights to how to live with dignity in a secular society.</p>

November 16, 2003 A Muslim Scholar Raises Hackles in FranceBy ELAINE SCIOLINO SAINT-DENIS, France, Nov. 13 — Of all the Muslim leaders in Europe, perhaps none has more visibility — and more faces — than Tariq Ramadan.To many experts on Islam, Mr. Ramadan, a 41-year-old, Swiss-born philosophy professor, is a respectable scholar who promotes a moderate, tolerant version of Islam from his headquarters in Geneva and in his lectures around the world.To his Muslim followers in the rough suburbs of France, he is a spiritual guide whose passionate speeches and cassette tapes inspire them to throw themselves and their beliefs...