ACLU says government using Patriot Act to

[Muslimah]

http://cbs4boston.com/nationalwire/ACLULaw...urces_news_html


ACLU says government using Patriot Act to censor, exclude Muslim scholar from U.S.


Thursday January 26, 2006


By LARRY NEUMEISTER


Associated Press Writer


NEW YORK (AP) A leading Muslim scholar who opposes the war in Iraq has sued the U.S. government, claiming officials used anti-terrorism laws to stop him from accepting speaking invitations from organizations.


In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, Tariq Ramadan accuses the government of manipulating the Patriot Act to muzzle him. In a phone interview with The Associated Press, the Swiss intellectual and Muslim scholar denied that he supports terrorism.


``I have no connections to terrorism,'' Ramadan said from Oxford, England, where he is a visiting fellow. ``This is all about my political thoughts. And my political thoughts are known to everyone.''


Ramadan was blocked from accepting a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame when his visa was revoked in August 2004 under a provision of the Patriot Act, said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU staff attorney.


Jaffer said the provision denies entry into the U.S. by any prominent foreigner who has used his status to endorse or espouse terrorism or to persuade others to do so.


Ramadan, 43, said he opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and sympathizes with the resistance there and in Palestine. But he said he also opposes Islamic extremism, and promotes peaceful solutions.


``I want to build bridges,'' he said. ``But I'm not blindly supportive of U.S. or European policies.''


Ramadan's lawyer said his exclusion reflected an effort by the U.S. government to discourage academic debate about the war and other issues.


``The government should not be using the immigration laws as instruments of censorship,'' Jaffer said.


Named as defendants in the lawsuit are Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.


The suit seeks a declaration that the Patriot Act provision at issue is unconstitutional. It also seeks a court order preventing the government from relying on the provision to exclude Ramadan or any other foreign national.


Besides Ramadan, plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center, organizations which had invited Ramadan to speak in the U.S.


``The exclusion of Professor Ramadan illustrates that the Patriot Act and other post 9/11 laws and policies may be serving to increase American isolation at a time when international dialogue is more critical than ever,'' Salman Rushdie, president of the PEN American Center, said in a statement. The center had invited Ramadan to speak in New York in April at its World Voices Festival.


The ACLU said Ramadan, a visiting fellow at St. Anthony's College at the University of Oxford, in August accepted British Prime Minister Tony Blair's invitation to join a government task force to examine the roots of extremism in Britain.


Megan Gaffney, a spokeswoman for government lawyers in Manhattan, said they had no immediate comment on the lawsuit.


Associated Press Writer Tom Hays contributed to this report.


(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)


In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors.