Tariq Ramadan, Noted Islamic Scholar, Denied Entry into U.S.
Tariq Ramadan, an internationally acclaimed scholar, was denied entry into the U.S. when the Bush administration revoked his H1-B visa on this day.
He had been scheduled to assume a position at Notre Dame University, as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding, at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Ramadan’s visa was formally denied in September 2006.
The ACLU had filed suit on his behalf in January 2006. In July 2009, a court of appeals upheld Ramadan’s right to a visa, and on the 20th of January 2010, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton lifted the ban on his entering the U.S. On the 8th of April, 2010, six years after he was first barred from the U.S., Tariq Ramadan spoke in New York City at Cooper Union.
The exclusion of Tariq Ramadan because of his Islamic background and ideas recalled the long history of exclusion of people from the U.S. because of their alleged radical associations or criticisms of American domestic or foreign policy.
Learn more at Tariq Ramadan’s official web site: http://tariqramadan.com/english/
Read some of Tariq Ramadan’s books: The Arab Awakening (2012); What I Believe (2009); Islam, the West, and the Challenge of Modernity (2001)