FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information contact: Larry Siems, (212) 334-1660 ext. 105, lsiems@pen.org
New York, NY, February 28, 2007
– Responding to the United States government’s most recent explanation
for denying a visa to Tariq Ramadan, PEN American Center has joined
with the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of
University Professors, and the American Civil Liberties Union in filing
a new motion in federal court to strike down a Patriot Act provision
that allows the government to refuse entry to foreign scholars because
of their political views.
PEN and its co-plaintiffs originally went to court in January 2006,
after government officials had indicated Ramadan was denied entry to
the United States under a Patriot Act provision barring those who
“endorse or espouse terrorism.” However, the government abandoned those
claims in court proceedings, and instead insisted it needed more time
to process Ramadan’s visa application. The court disagreed, and ordered
the government to issue the visa or give the reason for its refusal
within 90 days. Just before the deadline, Ramadan was informed that his
visa application was being denied because he had donated small amounts
of money between 1998 and 2002 to French and Swiss organizations that
provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians. The government now asserts
that the donations, which Ramadan himself disclosed during his visa
interview and which occurred before the Bush Administration listed the
charities on a terror watch list, render Ramadan inadmissible under
“material support” provisions of the Patriot Act and other legislation.
The group’s new motion asks the court to rule that this latest visa
denial violates the First Amendment rights of Americans to hear
directly from Professor Ramadan and engage him in face-to-face debate,
and that the ideological exclusion provision in general preempts
dialogue and debate with foreign scholars whose speech the government
disfavors. While the provision is nominally aimed at those who “espouse
or endorse terrorist activity,” the provision’s terms are vague;
indeed, the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual interprets the
provision to apply to those foreign nationals who have voiced
“irresponsible expressions of opinion.”
PEN’s Declaration to the court, which details the organization’s
wide-ranging efforts to bring international literature and ideas before
American audiences and cites other examples of foreign scholars who
have been barred from entering the United States since September 11,
2001, argues that Ramadan’s treatment illustrates the obvious dangers
of such an ill-defined provision:
The
government’s invocation of the ideological exclusion provision to
revoke Professor Ramadan’s visa in 2004 leads PEN to believe that the
government is purposely excluding those authors and scholars whose
opinions it disfavors because while Professor Ramadan has always, and
without exception, condemned the use of terrorism, he is a well-known
critic of U.S. foreign policy. While the government has since tried to
disavow its use of the ideological exclusion provision to revoke
Professor Ramadan’s teaching visa and has pointed to the material
support provision as the basis for his most recent exclusion, there is
no evidence to suggest its original revocation was based on material
support concerns and not Professor Ramadan’s speech. The government’s
new basis for excluding Professor Ramadan seems merely pretextual.
The declaration concludes:
The
ideological exclusion provision impedes the principles of freedom of
speech for which PEN stands. Robust dialogue is imperative to ensuring
that the very serious issues relating to terrorism are properly
discussed and dealt with. Controversial scholarship, both foreign and
domestic, can easily but mistakenly fall under the ambit of the
ideological exclusion provision. Yet this is precisely the type of
scholarship that PEN, its members, and the general public must have
access to in order to have a serious and meaningful dialogue about some
of the most important and pressing issues of our time.
The court will hear arguments on the Summary Judgment motion this spring in New York.
>> Read PEN’s Declaration
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