Free Republic

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A Muslim scholar whose visa to teach at the University of Notre Dame was revoked shortly before the start of the school year has roused the support of Christians and Muslims who say he would add a valuable voice to religious understanding. Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Islamic theologian, was to have started work at the Catholic university in Indiana in August. In February, he was issued an H-1B visa, a category reserved for professionals. In late July, after his family had already shipped their belongings to Indiana, the State Department revoked the visa and told Ramadan he...

London, August 27: A Muslim scholar banned from the United States is to take up a post at Britain's prestigious University of Oxford, his college said today. Tariq Ramadan has been elected to a visiting fellowship (general) at St Antony's College for the coming academic year and is expected to begin work in October. "Professor Ramadan is an internationally-recognised scholar," St Antony's College, Oxford, said in a statement. "He was named by Time magazine as one of 100 innovators of the 21st century for his work on creating an independent European Islam. "He was recently appointed to a prestigious chair...

Concern is mounting that the US government is using antiterror laws - namely, the Patriot Act - to revive a now-discredited practice common during the cold war: the prevention of foreign intellectuals who are critical of administration policies from entering the country and sharing their views with Americans. The practice, called ideological exclusion, became illegal in 1990. But a recent lawsuit - brought by the American Association of University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the PEN American Center under the Freedom of Information Act - is asking the Bush administration to explain its decisions to revoke or deny...