Opinion: "Why I'm Banned in the USA" by Tariq Ramadan

October 1, 2006

Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092901334.html

On October 1, 2006 The Washington Post ran an opinion piece by Tariq Ramadan, "For more than two years now, the U.S. government has barred me from entering the United States to pursue an academic career. The reasons have changed over time, and have evolved from defamatory to absurd, but the effect has remained the same: I've been kept out... I am increasingly convinced that the Bush administration has barred me for a much simpler reason: It doesn't care for my political views. In recent years, I have publicly criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East, the war in Iraq, the use of torture, secret CIA prisons and other government actions that undermine fundamental civil liberties. And for many years, through my research and writing and speeches, I have called upon Muslims to better understand the principles of their own faith, and have sought to show that one can be Muslim and Western at the same time. My experience reveals how U.S. authorities seek to suppress dissenting voices and -- by excluding people such as me from their country -- manipulate political debate in America."