Swiss Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan plans to sue Rotterdam City Council and Erasmus University following their decision to sack him over accusations of backing the Iranian regime.
“I will not have my credibility damaged this way,” Ramadan, a world famed philosopher and theologist, told the NRC Handelsblad daily on Wednesday, August 19.
The Rotterdam City Council and Erasmus University dismissed Ramadan from his position as integration adviser and visiting professor respectively.
They cited his “Islam & Life” program airing on Iran’s Press TV as the reason for the decision.
“Although there is no doubt about the personal effort of Tariq Ramadan, both boards find this indirect relation with this repressive regime or even to be associated with it, not acceptable,” the city of Rotterdam said in a statement.
In an open letter on his website, Ramadan refuted the claims about his program on Press TV, an English-language channel.
“When I accepted the offer to host a television show about Islam and current life, I choose the path of critical debate,” he wrote.
“I challenge my critics to study these programs and to find the slightest support to the Iranian government.”
Ramadan, who is on vacation in Morocco, said he would appeal the “naive and simplistic” decision.
A Swiss citizen of Egyptian origin, Ramadan is one of Europe’s leading Muslim thinkers and has often condemned terrorism and extremism.
He is also a professor of Islamic studies at Oxford University and a research fellow at Doshisha University in Japan.
The author of 20 books and 700 articles on Islam, he was named by Time magazine as one of 100 innovators of the 21st century for his work on creating an independent European Islam.
Political Climate
Ramadan, who has a reputation in British and American academic circles as a moderate expert on Muslim affairs, linked his dismissal to a boiling political climate and the rise of far-right parties.
“Questions were raised in England as to my work for Press TV as well. In Rotterdam, however, people were waiting for a reason to cast me aside,” he told the daily.
“My dismissal says more about the worrying political state of your country than about my person.”
Last April, two Liberal executives on Rotterdam City Council resigned in protest at alleged statements by Ramadan against women ran by Gay Krant newspaper.
A council investigation into the statements found the paper’s allegations were groundless.
Ramadan believes his dismissal is meant to send a strong message in a country where far-right politicians like anti-Islam MP Greet Wilders wage fierce attacks on Muslims.
“They dominate the integration debate with their populist language,” said Ramadan.
“Rotterdam is susceptible to those sentiments as well. Yes, even the university is,” he contended.
Wilders’ Party for Freedom has emerged the bigger winner in the June European parliament elections with four seats.
“Panic rules in the Netherlands.”