Posted on 03/24/2009 2:08:51 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (AFP) – Civil rights lawyers appealed in court Tuesday against what they said was the US government's ideologically based decision to deny a visa to a leading Muslim scholar, Tariq Ramadan.
Attorney Jameel Jaffer, from the American Civil Liberties Union, told a three judge panel that the "government had "failed to identify ... legitimate and bona fide reasons for the exclusion."
Jaffer, ACLU national security project director, argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that excluding Ramadan, a research fellow at Oxford University, also threatened free speech in the United States.
The appeal followed the decision by a lower court in December to reject the ACLU's arguments. If the appeal is thrown out, the ACLU could take its case before a bigger panel of judges, or possibly the US Supreme Court.
Ramadan was all set to take a teaching position at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in late 2004 when he was denied the visa, despite two dozen previous visits to the country.
Initially the denial was based on an "ideological provision" allowed for under the Patriot Act anti-terrorism law, Jaffer said.
Only later was the visa denial pinned to Ramadan having donated 1,300 dollars to a Swiss charity, Association de Secours Palestinien (ASP).
The charity funded Hamas, the ruling Palestinian group in Gaza, which Washington designates as a terrorist organization.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The Tooth Fairy
Santa Claus
“Muslim scholar”
This guy has an ugly tract record a mlle long that is very well known, but you can bet that the government has a number of very good reasons to exclude this POS that they aren’t talking about. Some of it they cannot talk about because doing so would reveal some particularly useful sources in the UK and here. All that said, no foreigner has a right to come to this country and we can turn them down without cause. What is Notre Dame thinking? Who would want their kids “educated” by this kind of scum?
Couple of points.
1.Its OUR Country. We should be allowed to let in or keep out whomever we want. Deal with it.
2.Reasons to keep him out? He is a muslim.They are at War with the US Yes they really are....
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