Citing Homeland Security U.S. denies visa to prominent Muslim scholar
Thursday, September 16, 2004 at 05:56AM
TheSpook
Just as the current academic year was about to
begin, Professor Tariq Ramadan received startling news -- that he would
not be able to assume his teaching position at the University of Notre
Dame because the U.S. government had revoked his visa. His furniture
had already arrived in South Bend, Ind., and his children were
registered for school there. A Muslim scholar of world renown, recently
named by TIME magazine as one of the world's 100 most influential
people, Ramadan had accepted the Henry B. Luce Professorship in
Religion, Conflict and Peace Building within the Joan B. Kroc Institute
for International Peace Studies, and was to have started teaching this
fall. A Swiss citizen, he had traveled freely in the United States as a
visitor, but his employment at Notre Dame now made a visa essential.
The reasons for this highly unusual action remain obscure. Apparently
the Department of Homeland Security deemed Ramadan to be a person of
"prominence" who could be excluded under a statute that denies entry to
any person whom the government believes likely to "engage after entry
in terrorist activity." The State Department, responding to such a
finding, revoked the visa. [more ]
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