Obama State Department Cites Outreach to Muslims As Reason to Allow Two Muslim Scholars Into the Country
Friday, January 22, 2010
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration announced earlier this week that it would allow two Muslim scholars into the country – lifting a ban on Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss national and professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University, and Adam Habib of South Africa.

But the pro-Palestinian group cited by the U.S. government in denying Tariq Ramadan’s visa remains on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of organizations sanctioned for their links to terrorism.

The Paris-based Commite de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP) and its Swiss-based subsidiary Association de Secours Palestinien (ASP) were added to Treasury’s list in August 2003, after the U.S. government identified them as “primary fundraisers” in France and Switzerland for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

“The group has collected large amounts of money from mosques and Islamic centers, which it then transfers to sub-organizations of Hamas,” the Treasury Department announced at the time.

Tariq Ramadan’s supporters characterized the decision to clear the way for future visits as a victory for civil liberties, and State Department spokesmen said it was consistent with President Obama’s outreach to Muslims and desire to encourage debate.

“We want to have the opportunity potentially to have Islamic scholars come to the United States and have dialogue with other faith communities and people here in our country,” Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley told reporters.

The stated reason for denying Ramadan a visa was not his ideological views, however, but his donations to the Hamas-linked groups.

Commenting on the administration’s decision, Middle East expert Daniel Pipes questioned the fact that officials are presenting it in the context of “pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

“But it’s always been a terrorism case, with no connection to issues of Islam,” Pipes wrote on his Web site. “What amateurs.”

When the Bush administration first revoked Ramadan’s visa – a move that scuttled his plan to take up a position at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 – it cited a Patriot Act provision permitted the barring of foreigners found to have used a “position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity, or to persuade others to support terrorist activity or a terrorist organization.”

The administration later provided as a reason the fact Ramadan had made donations to CBSP-ASP between 1998 and 2002.

Ramadan has not denied sending a total of 1,670 Swiss francs ($1,603 at today’s exchange rate) to ASP, but he did state in legal documents that he was unaware that the recipients were providing funds to Hamas or supporting terrorism.

Throughout, he disputed that the donations were the real reason for the visa denial.

In a statement posted on his Web site from London, Ramadan said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decision this week confirmed that the U.S. allegations “were nothing more than a pretense to prohibit me from speaking critically about American government policy on American soil.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which together with other organizations championed the Ramadan and Habib cases, charged that the visa denials were part of a campaign of “ideological exclusion” – a pattern of “denying visas to foreign nationals whose political views the government disfavors.”

“For several years, the United States government was more interested in stigmatizing and silencing its foreign critics than in engaging them,” Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in response to this week’s policy shift.

Jaffer called the move “a welcome sign that the Obama administration is committed to facilitating, rather than obstructing, the exchange of ideas across international borders.”

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GOP rep.: Ft. Hood report ‘sanitized’
The Pentagon’s 86-page report on the Fort Hood massacre was “sanitized” to avoid discussing Islamic terrorism, the congressman who represents the base told POLITICO Monday.

The report, released last week, says that the Army’s middle management missed signals about Nidal Malik Hasan in the months leading up to the mass shooting.

But missing from the report is any discussion of what Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) said was the a “crisis” with Islamic terrorism. Hasan allegedly wore ritual Muslim garb shouted “God is great” in Arabic when opening fire on a group of soldiers on the base — facts Carter said should have been disclosed in the report to help soldiers identify such signs in the future.

A search of the report does not turn up any mentions of Islam.

“People are afraid to speak out and label someone because they’ll be accused of being a racist or accused of profiling or being prejudiced against a certain religion or race of people,” Carter told POLITICO. “But in a time of national crisis, which I believe we are in, all identifiers must be discussed.”

SNIP

“We want the world to know that we are not prejudiced, even to the people that hate us,” Carter said. “That’s craziness.”

NEW YORK – Three men suspected of being al-Qaida associates have been indicted on charges they plotted to ferry drugs through the Sahara Desert to raise money for terrorist attacks.

The charges of narcoterrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists were contained Wednesday in an indictment returned in Manhattan.

Oumar Issa (OO’-mahr EE’-sah), Harouna Toure (hah-ROO’-nah TOHR’-ay), and Idriss Abelrahman (EE’-drihs ah-behl-RAH’-muhn), believed to be in their 30s and from Mali, are being held without bail.

Authorities say the case marks the first time the U.S. has captured and charged al-Qaida suspects in a drug trafficking plot in Africa. They were brought to the U.S. this month after being arrested in Ghana.

A lawyer for the suspects did not immediately return a call for comment.

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