To the disappointment of civil libertarians, an assistant U.S. attorney arguing in behalf of the Obama administration agreed this week with a policy of the Bush administration that bars Tariq Ramadan, one of Europe's leading Muslim intellectuals, from entering the United States.
Here's a story from Reuters.
There's a lot to the Ramadan saga. The Swiss citizen, an author, Oxford University professor and a vocal critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is a grandson of Hasan al-Banna, an Islamist thinker and activist who in 1928 founded the Muslim Brotherhood, which vehemently opposed secular and Western ideas.
Ramadan's U.S. visa was revoked, and he was denied permission to enter the country, in the years after 9/11.
"Washington initially gave no reason for its decision," the Reuters story said, "but later said Ramadan had been barred based on a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows people to be excluded for supporting terrorism."
Government lawyers said he gave 1,670 Swiss francs, then worth $1,336, to the Association de Secours Palestinien, or ASP, from 1998 to 2002. The group has been listed by the U.S. government as a banned organization since 2003. American officials say it lent financial support to Hamas and otherwise supported terrorism.
Others, notably the American Civil Liberties Union, say Ramadan is being persecuted not because he poses a security threat to the United States but because he holds political ideas that are unpopular with Washington.
Here's a commentary that Ramadan wrote in 2007 for The Christian Science Monitor in which he said he was "blacklisted" by the U.S. government.