Britain should be vigilant in shielding its tradition of free speech from erosion by anxieties over security, a leading European Muslim critic of the Iraq war says, referring to a furore over Islamists on UK campuses.
A report that a Nigerian who allegedly tried to down a U.S. airliner joined al Qaeda as a student in Britain has triggered charges from some media commentators that militant Islamists are establishing a dangerous presence at British universities.
Yemen has said the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, joined al Qaeda in Britain before moving to the Arabian country, his home until shortly before Dec. 25. Britain says he was not seen as someone engaged in extremism during his 2005-08 stay.
Tariq Ramadan, professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University, told Reuters that U.S. experience under the Bush administration had shown security fears could result in pressure on academic freedoms, a danger he said the Obama administration was now addressing.
"I think that in times of psychological pressure and fears anything is possible," he said. "I think we have to be very vigilant in Britain. It's a very old tradition of free speech."
"What President Obama is saying today is, if we want to defeat violent extremist Muslims we should understand that Muslims that are the mainstream trends are our allies, not our enemies. This is something we have to keep in mind in the UK."
The U.S. administration said on Wednesday it had lifted a ban on a planned visit by Ramadan, who was barred from the U.S. for several years due to alleged terrorism ties which he denies. Rights groups hailed the move as a victory for civil liberties.
The State Department said of the move that the government hoped to encourage more interaction with the Muslim world.
Ramadan said: "We should be able to protect the expression of disagreement, of dissent. If not we are all in danger."
University College London, where Abdulmutallab studied, has set up an independent review of his time at the university. A university lobby group, Universities UK, is examining how all universities can protect academic freedom whilst taking "appropriate action" to prevent violent extremism.
"CRITICAL LOYALTY"
The American Civil Liberties Union had championed the case of Ramadan as part of a pattern of scholars being excluded due to unwarranted or unspecified U.S. national security grounds.
"You had Sept. 11 and you had an administration for eight years which was able to put such a psychological pressure on the continent it was very difficult to have free speech," Ramadan said, referring to the attacks on U.S. targets of 2001.
Ramadan said controversial headlines about security issues obscured what he called the positive dimension of Muslims' presence and achievements in Britain, saying that at local level community relations had improved a great deal in 30 years.
The Dec. 25 plane incident also revived debate in Britain about the attitudes of Muslim minorities towards Western foreign policy.
Britain has been a target for militants since it joined the United States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq after the Sept. 11 attacks. In 2005, suicide attacks in London killed 52 people.
Ramadan said he was telling Muslims critical of Western policies that they should be "constructively critical".
"This is what I call the critical loyalty. So a loyal citizen is not a blind citizen," he said.