Federal Judge Wrongly Allows Exclusion of Renowned Muslim Scholar
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ACLU Says Tariq Ramadan Banned From U.S. For Political Beliefs
NEW YORK – The American
Civil Liberties Union strongly criticized a federal judge’s ruling today that
allows the government’s exclusion of renowned Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan from
the U.S. The ACLU continues to believe that Ramadan, a leading European academic
whose work addresses Muslim identity and the role of Islam in democratic
societies, remains banned due to his political viewpoints.
“Today’s
decision is both legally wrong and deeply unjust. Professor Ramadan – like many
other critics of U.S. foreign policy – is being excluded not because of his
actions, but because of his ideas. In our view, the government’s stated reason
for excluding him is just a pretext,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU’s
National Security Project. “The court should have subjected the government’s
evidence to meaningful scrutiny, but instead it allowed the government to bar
Ramadan from the country without any evidence at all. The result of this
decision is that foreign scholars will continue to be barred from the United
States solely because of their speech. That’s a very sad thing not just for the
excluded scholars but for the many U.S. citizens and residents who want to meet
with them and hear their views.”
U.S. District
Judge Paul A. Crotty of the Southern District of New York ruled that Ramadan
could be denied entry into the U.S. based on small donations he made between
1998 and 2002 to a Swiss charity that provides aid to Palestinians. Although the
organization operates lawfully in Europe to this day, the Bush administration
added the group to a blacklist in 2003 because it allegedly provided "material
support" to Hamas. Siding with the executive branch, Judge Crotty ruled that
material support laws enacted in 2005 should be applied retroactively to
donations made before the Swiss charity was blacklisted by the United States and
the material support laws were enacted.
Judge Crotty himself admitted
that it was a herculean task for Ramadan to definitively prove he was not aware
of the Swiss charity’s alleged ties to Hamas, but he nevertheless required such
a showing. He writes, “The [material support] statute imposes a heavy burden: it
requires Professor Ramadan to prove a negative, and to do so by clear and
convincing proof.” In addition, Judge Crotty’s ruling gave extraordinary
deference to the government: “Once the consular official has made this decision”
to exclude a foreign scholar, he writes, “it is not the Court’s role . . . to
second guess the result.”
Today’s decision comes as a result of a lawsuit
filed in January 2006 by the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union on
behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of
University Professors, and the PEN American Center.
The case is AAR v. Chertoff and is in the United States
District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Attorneys in the
case are Jaffer, Melissa Goodman, Lucas Guttentag and Judy Rabinovitz of the
ACLU, Arthur Eisenberg of the NYCLU, and New York immigration lawyer Claudia
Slovinsky. The lawsuit was brought against Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff and Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice.
Today’s decision is available at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/exclusion/33325lgl20071220.html
More information on ideological exclusion is online at:
www.aclu.org/exclusion
A new
ACLU report, The Excluded - Ideological
Exclusion and the War on Ideas, addressing the history of ideological
exclusion and including profiles of some of its victims, can be found online at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/exclusion/32357pub20071025.html