Global media is widely reporting that Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Tariq Ramadan is taking a leave of absence from Oxford University following the recent flurry of rape and sexual misconduct allegations against him. According to a BBC report:
The prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan is taking a leave of absence from Oxford University following rape and sexual misconduct allegations. He is under investigation in France over two allegations of rape.
He has also been accused by four Swiss women of making sexual advances towards them while they were students in Geneva. He denies all the allegations.
The decision was mutually agreed and implied no presumption of guilt, the university said in a statement.
‘By mutual agreement, and with immediate effect, Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies, has taken a leave of absence from the University of Oxford,’ the statement said.
The university went on to acknowledge that the accusations against the professor had caused ‘heightened and understandable distress’.
‘An agreed leave of absence implies no presumption or acceptance of guilt and allows Professor Ramadan to address the extremely serious allegations made against him, all of which he categorically denies,’ it said.
One of Mr Ramadan’s accusers, Henda Ayari, told French media that he assaulted her in a Paris hotel in 2012, saying he ‘literally pounced on me like a wild animal’ and she thought she ‘was going to die’.
A second accuser, a disabled woman who has remained anonymous, said Mr Ramadan beat her and raped her multiple times in a hotel in Lyon in 2009.
Mr Ramadan denied the accusations, calling them ‘a campaign of lies’, and said his lawyer was suing the women for ‘slander’. Investigators in France are looking into the women’s allegations jointly as part of a preliminary probe for rape, sexual assault, violence and death threats, French media reported.
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The GMBDW reported late last month that that Tariq Ramadan had ben accused of rape by a French author, described as a feminist.
The GMBDW last reported on Ramadan in May 2016 when we reported that he had issued yet another one of his conspiracy theories involving Jews, this time alleging without offering proof that a website citing alleged statements of his was “Zionist and Islamophobic propaganda.” Despite complaining that he has been dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”, Tariq Ramadan is known for his conspiratorial theories involving Jews and Israel. For example:
- In July 2014, the GMBDW reported that Tariq Ramadan had done his best to help pour fuel on the fires of the Gaza conflict by describing the ethics of Israel as bombing civilians and destroying them “by tens, hundreds, and in the recent past by the thousands.”
- In June 2014, we reported that Tariq Ramadan had alleged that Belgian officials may be part of a conspiracy to falsely depict the Brussels Jewish museum shootings as anti-Semitic.
- In July 2013, we reported that Tariq Ramadan had authored an article in which implied that the overthrow of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was orchestrated by a conspiracy involving the US and Israel together with what he alleges to be their Salafist allies.
- In March 2012, despite Western media reporting on the extremist Islam and anti-Semitic background of the so-called “Toulouse scooter killer”, the GMBDW reported that Ramadan wrote that neither religion nor politics were the motivations for the killings but rather the killers feelings about Afghanistan and Palestine.
Tariq Ramadan is best described as an independent power center within the Global Muslim Brotherhood who has sufficient stature as the son of Said Ramadan and the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood to challenge positions taken by important Brotherhood leaders. His statements and writings have been extensively analyzed and he has been accused by critics of promoting anti-Semitism and fundamentalism, albeit by subtle means. On the other hand, his supporters promote him as an example of an Islamic reformer who is in the forefront of developing a “Euro Islam.” Ramadan was banned from visiting the US until January 2010 when the ban was lifted.
For further information on Tariq Ramadan, go here.