US maintains entry ban on Muslim scholar Ramadan

PARIS, Sep 25 (Reuters) A prominent Swiss Muslim intellectual said today the US government had dropped charges against him of supporting terrorism, but refused to scrap an entry ban.

Tariq Ramadan, now an academic at Oxford University in Britain, said he had received an official letter effectively clearing him of charges that kept him from taking up a teaching post at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

However, the letter from the US embassy in Bern explained the continued ban by saying he had contributed about 600 euros to a Palestinian support group, he said.

''This is an ideological exclusion,'' he told Reuters by telephone from London. ''This is the only way they can justify their decision after two years of investigation.'' Ramadan, who has been a vocal critic of the US invasion of Iraq and its support for Israel, received a visa in 2004 but Washington later revoked it on advice from the Department of Homeland Security, which gave no reason for its decision.

He quit the post but fought to have the ban lifted and his name cleared.

A federal judge in New York criticized the government in June for holding up his visa application and ruled it must make a decision in the long-running case within three months.

The American Civil Liberties Union had sued the US government in January on behalf of Ramadan and institutes that had invited him to speak, arguing the government improperly denied visas to scholars critical of the Bush administration.

The ACLU said it was considering an appeal of the decision to deny Ramadan a visa. A US State Department spokesman declined to comment.

AID TO PALESTINIANS Ramadan said his contributions to the French-based Committee for Charity and Aid to Palestinians (CBSP) were apparently seen as support for the Palestinian movement Hamas, which Washington has listed as a terrorist organization.

However, he said he had sent the funds in 2000, long before Hamas was declared terrorist. He noted that the CBSP was legal in France, and that the French city of Lille had cooperated with it for several years in charity projects for Palestinians.

In a statement, Ramadan said: ''The contents of this letter clear my name of all the allegations and accusations brought against me since my visa was revoked.

''Everything that was said about my so-called dubious relations, my meetings with this or that terrorist, my teaching, my ideas and writings encouraging or justifying terrorism, my double-speak -- none of that was mentioned.'' Ramadan, who regularly condemns terrorism and Islamist violence, provokes contrasting reactions from divergent groups.

The Geneva-born intellectual is popular among young European Muslims for his efforts to reconcile their European and Islamic identities. His reputation in British and US academic circles is one of a moderate expert on Muslim affairs.

In France, officials and the media see him as a radical who preaches hard-line Islam to Muslim audiences and moderation to non-Muslims. He denies the charge of ''double-speak.'' In his statement, Ramadan said he would continue to support the Palestinian cause. ''If the price to pay for this commitment is to never to tread upon American soil, I am ready to pay that without the slightest hesitation.'' Reuters SRS VP0140