• On March 15, 2006 the Associated Press reported, "A Muslim scholar suing the U.S. government over its refusal to give him a travel visa asked a court Wednesday to allow him to enter the country temporarily while the case is awaiting trial. Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who teaches at the University of Oxford in England, had his U.S. visa revoked in 2004, shortly before he was scheduled to move to Indiana to accept a position at the University of Notre Dame. The American Civil Liberties Union, 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... In court papers filed Wednesday, the ACLU asked a judge to issue a preliminary ruling that the government was wrong to bar entry to Ramadan based on the Patriot Act's 'ideological exclusion' provision. The groups also asked a judge to allow the professor to come to the U.S. for several speaking engagements, including one in late April to attend a 'World Voices' festival sponsored by the PEN American Center, a literary and anti-censorship group." (March 15, 2006, Newsday/AP)

• On April 19, 2006 The New York Times reported, "Government lawyers clarified some mysteries yesterday and deepened others in the case of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim scholar and leading European theologian of Islam who has been barred by the Bush administration from traveling to the United States since July 2004. Papers the government presented at a hearing in federal court in New York revealed that, contrary to officials' statements, a clause in the USA Patriot Act that bans any foreigner who 'endorses or espouses terrorist activity' was not the reason Mr. Ramadan's United States visa was revoked. The government also said it did not intend to bar Mr. Ramadan in the future based on that clause. But the government also said that Mr. Ramadan's case had been and remained a national security matter, and that statements he made in recent interviews with American consular officials in Switzerland had raised new 'serious questions' about whether he should be allowed to come to the United States. Neither the government's documents nor its lawyer, David S. Jones, an assistant United States attorney, explained why Mr. Ramadan was first banned or provided any detail about the new concerns."
(April 19, 2006, The New York Times)

Well, i'm conflicted. The panel would have been more interesting with him on it. And now he'll be a martyr to the literati at the PEN Festival.