The Obama administration has abolished a Bush-era ban on two prominent Muslim scholars, including Swiss professor Tariq Ramadan, a decision praised as a victory for civil liberties.
“After more than six years, my exclusion from the United States has come to an end,” Ramadan said in a statement posted on his website.
“I am delighted at the decision.”
Ramadan was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 but the Bush administration revoked his visa, citing a statute that applies to those who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism.
It later dropped the terror endorsement claim and linked the ban to $1,336 Ramadan donated between 1998 and 2002 to a Swiss charity that was only blacklisted by the US in 2003.
In March, the Obama administration asked the court to uphold the Bush-era ban on Ramadan, one of Europe’s leading Muslim intellectuals.
But the administration has now decided to lift the entry ban on Ramadan and South African Muslim scholar Adam Habib, deputy vice chancellor at the University of Johannesburg.
“The next time Professor Ramadan or Professor Habib applies for a visa, he will not be found inadmissible on the basis of the facts that led to denial when they last applied,” US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.
“We do not think that either one of them represents a threat to the United States.”
The decision is seen as part of Obama’s efforts to improve America’s relations with the Muslim world.
“Consistent with President Obama’s outreach to Muslims around the world, we want to encourage global debate,” Crowley said.
“We want to have the opportunity potentially to have Islamic scholars come to the US and have dialogue with other faith communities and people here in our country.”
In a landmark speech to the Muslim world from Cairo in June, Obama vowed a new phase in relations with the Muslim world to overcome a decade of mistrust.
Victory
Ramadan, a Swiss citizen of Egyptian origin, said the new decision marks a new era for the US.
“The decision brings to an end a dark period in American politics that saw security considerations invoked to block critical debate through a policy of exclusion and baseless allegation.”
Ramadan is one of Europe’s leading Muslim thinkers and has often condemned terrorism and extremism.
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.
The ban lifting on the two Muslim scholars has been welcomed by rights groups as a victory for civil liberties.
“The orders ending the exclusion of Adam Habib and Tariq Ramadan are long overdue and tremendously important,” Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)'s National Security Project, said in an online statement.
The group, which filed a lawsuit in 2006 to challenge the ban, closes the chapter of the Bush-era draconian policies.
“For several years, the US government was more interested in stigmatizing and silencing its foreign critics than in engaging them,” Jaffer said.
“The decision is a welcome sign that the Obama administration is committed to facilitating, rather than obstructing, the exchange of ideas across international borders.”
