Tariq Ramadan in the Washington Post
Enemies of civilization who have been granted op-ed space by the Washington Post include: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
And now we can add Muslim Brotherhood front man Tariq Ramadan to that list, with an op-ed in which every word, including “and” and “the,” is a lie: Why I’m Banned in the USA. (Hat tip: Bubbaman.)
Of course, he claims he has no connections to terrorism, and that the US refuses to grant him a visa because they “disagree with his views.”
Shame on the Washington Post. Again.
From Douglas Farah’s blog, here’s some information about Ramadan the Post doesn’t think you need to know: Why Tariq Ramadan Was Denied a Visa.
Earlier this month Jean-Charles Brisard first revealed the following Ramadan ties to the less than moderate elements of Islamist structure. European intelligence sources had privately told me of the contents of the Swiss report on Ramadan’s arrangement of a 1991 meeting with Zawahiri and the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel Rahman. Since the information is already in the public domain, I am reprinting some of the ties outlined by JCB, from his blog, that may be useful in understanding the decision even if one does not agree with it.
A Spanish Police General Directorate memo dated 1999 stating that Ahmed Brahim (sentenced to 10 years in prison for incitement to terrorism in April 2006) maintained “regular contacts with important figures of radical Islam such as Tariq Ramadan”.
The minutes of Djamel Beghal’s (sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2005) first appearance testimony on October 1st, 2001 (following his indictment by a French antiterrorist judge for his participation to a foiled terrorist attack against the US Embassy in Paris), where he stated that before 1994, he “attended the courses given by Tarek Ramadan”.
According to the final prosecution documents, during his first interrogation before UAE authorities who arrested him, Beghal stated on September 22, 2001, that “his religious engagement started in 1994” when “he was in charge of writing the statements of Tariq Ramadan”.
A Swiss intelligence memo of 2001 stating that “brothers Hani and Tariq Ramadan coordinated a meeting held in 1991 in Geneva attended by Ayman Al Zawahiri and Omar Abdel Rahman”, respectively Al Qaeda leader and planner of the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993, and sentenced to life in the United States.
A human source testimony corroborating this information and stating that at the end of a Friday prayer at the Islamic Center of Geneva in 1991, Hani Ramadan, brother of Tariq Ramadan, told the audience that a conference will be held few days later with Ayman Al Zawahiri, describing him as an “Islamic Mujahideen”.
New documents reveal that Tariq Ramadan had contacts with other terrorists in Europe.
According to the final French prosecution filing (dated December 8, 2005) against the “Chechen networks”, who had planned chemical attacks in France “under the supervision of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi”, Menad Benchellali (Head of the network who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June 2006) traveled to Switzerland “one or two times in 2000 to attend conferences on Islam provided by Tariq Ramadan”.