A leading Muslim academic suing the US government over its refusal to give him a travel visa has asked a federal court to allow him to enter the country temporarily while the case is awaiting trial. Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who now teaches at Oxford University in the UK, had his US visa revoked in 2004, shortly before he was scheduled to move to the US to accept a position at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is representing Ramadan, said the State Department excluded the professor under a provision of the Patriot Act that allows the government to bar entry to any prominent foreigner who has used his status to endorse or espouse terrorism. Ramadan is a critic of the US invasion of Iraq and has said he sympathises with nonviolent Palestinian resistance against Israel, but says he is a moderate who opposes terrorism and does not support Islamic extremism.
| It's our country. If we don't want to let him in we don't have to. |