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U.S. lifts travel ban on scholars
January 29, 2010

WASHINGTON — The State Department said recently that two prominent Muslim intellectuals will no longer be barred from traveling to the U.S. based on past accusations that they had supported terrorism.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed orders allowing Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib to reapply for U.S. visas, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who teaches at Oxford University in England, had been barred from entering the U.S. since 2004 . At the time, he had planned to take a tenured position at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.

He had donated about $1,000 to a Swiss-based charity that gave funds to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, according to The New York Times, but denied knowledge of the charity's ties to Hamas.

Habib is a scholar at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa.

Crowley said lifting the ban is “consistent with President Obama's outreach” to Muslims. “We want to have the opportunity potentially to have Islamic scholars come to the United States and have dialogue with other faith communities and people here in our country,” he said.

Source :- http://www.chron.com