US at home: visa harassment, superstition, corrupt cop

[Anivar Aravind]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64700-2004Dec14.html
has a photo of ramadan.

Washington Post Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Lacking Visa, Islamic Scholar Resigns Post at Notre Dame

By Peter Slevin

CHICAGO, Dec. 14 -- Unable to obtain a visa from the Bush
administration or a promise about when a decision would be made,
Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan resigned his faculty appointment at
the University of Notre Dame this week, saying he needed to end the
uncertainty.

In limbo since the State Department invoked an anti-terrorism law to
keep him out of the country, Ramadan told Notre Dame that he could
no longer accept the tenured appointment in classics and peace
studies, the university announced Tuesday.

"As you may imagine, my family has experienced enormous stress
and uncertainty during this period, and I keenly feel the need to
resolve our situation," wrote Ramadan, a high-profile Swiss theologian
who publicly opposes violence in the name of Islam.

Notre Dame administrators, who vetted Ramadan and found nothing
that undermined his assertions of innocence, were disappointed in the
Bush administration's refusal to admit him.

"This is an opportunity lost," said Matthew V. Storin, associate vice
president for news and information. "It's unfortunate that we were not
able to have him share his views with our students because the idea
was to have a dialogue in the interest of peace. You want to have as
many divergent voices as you can."

No one in authority has told the university why the State Department
revoked Ramadan's visa last summer, shortly before he was to begin
teaching a seminar on Islamic ethics at the South Bend, Ind., campus.
"We were never given any specific information," Storin said. "We were
never told, 'We have this,' and that was frustrating."

State Department spokeswoman Angela Aggeler said the details
behind what is known as a "prudential revocation" remain confidential.
She said Ramadan reapplied after his visa was revoked and that his
case is under review, with the Department of Homeland Security
assigned to make a decision. That review will now stop.

Aggeler said Ramadan, 42, was denied a visa under a section of U.S.
code that bars terrorists and their associates, as well as people who
have incited others to violence.

Ramadan is well-regarded in intellectual circles as a scholar who
seeks to bridge the Western and Muslim worlds, arguing that a
Muslim can be a full participant in both. A scholar of Friedrich
Nietzsche and the Koran, he is the author of more than 20 books,
including most recently, "Western Muslims and the Future of Islam."

He has drawn criticism from some Muslims that he is not Muslim
enough and from some Westerners that he is insufficiently Western.
When the French government banned Islamic head scarves from
schools, Ramadan argued that it was a human rights issue, not simply
a matter of Muslim faith. To those who said he was insisting that
women cover their heads -- or that he should insist that they do so --
he countered that it was a woman's right to decide.

In his defense, Ramadan has said he called on Muslims after Sept.
11, 2001, to condemn the terrorist attack and declare it a betrayal of
the Islamic message. He has often denounced anti-Semitism and has
called for a "spiritual reformation that will lead to an Islamic feminism."

Ramadan has accused the Saudi government of human rights
violations. He has also criticized Bush administration policies in the
Middle East, calling them "misguided and counterproductive" in a New
York Times op-ed in September. He said that "sponsoring a few
Arabic TV and radio channels will not lead to real changes in Muslims'
perceptions."

His critics contend that Ramadan delivers a more extremist message
in Arabic than in French or English and may have ties to al Qaeda
members, although the U.S. government has not made public
allegations against him. Ramadan, whose grandfather, Hassan
Banna, was a founder of the militant Muslim Brotherhood, said the
"State Department's reasoning remains a mystery."

Ramadan's visa was revoked after he had shipped his household
goods to his new home in South Bend and enrolled his daughter in
school. The university said Tuesday that it will ship his belongings
back to Switzerland.

NY Times December 15, 2004

School Board Sued on Mandate for Alternative to Evolution

By NEELA BANERJEE

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for
Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit yesterday in Federal
District Court in Harrisburg, Pa., against the school board of Dover,
Pa., saying the board violated the religious rights of several parents
and students by requiring the teaching of an alternative theory to
evolution in public schools.

Situated 20 miles south of Harrisburg, Dover is apparently the first
school district in the United States to require high school biology
teachers to introduce students to the alternate theory, known as
intelligent design. The theory says the development of the universe
and earth was guided at each step by an "intelligent agent."

Proponents say it provides scientific answers for gaps and
inconsistencies in the theory of evolution.

Critics, including the groups suing, say intelligent design is a watered-
down version of creationism, which the Supreme Court has
repudiated in public school curriculums.

Initiatives to introduce intelligent design in curriculums are percolating
nationally, and this case could test how far opponents of evolution can
go in shaping the teaching of science, said advocates and critics of
intelligent design.

"There is reason that the eyes of the nation will be on this," the
assistant legal director at Americans United, Richard B. Katskee, said,
"because these kind of efforts are going on in other places or are
imminent there."

Recent surveys have shown that a majority of Americans favor
teaching alternatives in school, and local boards have stepped up
efforts to challenge the teaching of evolution. In Cobb County, Ga.,
the civil liberties group has sued the school district over a disclaimer
about evolution inserted into textbooks. In Kansas, conservatives who
favor challenging the teaching of evolution recently won a majority on
the state school board, and they are generally expected to change the
state science curriculum as early as the spring.

The two groups in Pennsylvania say teaching intelligent design
violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which
calls for the separation of church and state.

The Dover district said in a statement on its Web site that it was
reviewing the case.

A major proponent of intelligent design, the Discovery Institute in
Seattle, said that the Dover policy was misguided because it was
unclear and that it should be withdrawn and rewritten.

Other proponents said the theory was not based on any religion's
holdings about creation but on science.

"Students will be made aware of gaps and problems in evolution," said
Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More
Law Center, a public interest law firm in Ann Arbor, Mich., that
promotes Christian values. "What's wrong with that? What gets the
A.C.L.U. and others all upset is that those alternatives to evolution
might include intelligent design, which might lead to God."

NY Times December 15, 2004

Apartment Said to Have Been Scene of a Kerik Affair

By CHARLES V. BAGLI

An apartment in Battery Park City that former Police Commissioner
Bernard B. Kerik secured for his personal use after Sept. 11 was
originally donated for the use of weary police and rescue workers who
were helping at ground zero, according to a real estate executive who
has been briefed about the apartment.

After the cleanup had settled into a routine that fall, the executive
said, Mr. Kerik, who was still police commissioner, asked to rent the
two-bedroom apartment for his own use. During his use of the
apartment, Mr. Kerik and Judith Regan engaged in an extramarital
affair there, according to someone who spoke to Mr. Kerik about the
relationship. Ms. Regan published his best-selling autobiography in
2001.

Rescue workers were combing through the World Trade Center
rubble around the clock when Mr. Kerik called Anthony Bergamo, a
well-connected vice chairman of the Milstein family real estate
company and a police buff, and asked for help finding a place for the
workers to rest during breaks, the executive said.

The family owned Liberty View, a 28-story yellow brick tower two
blocks southwest of the trade center at the corner of West Street and
Third Place.

According to the executive, who knows Mr. Bergamo, the vice
chairman arranged for Mr. Kerik to have the use of an apartment
there. Several apartments in the buildings had been used by rescue
workers on breaks, and by Red Cross staff who were treating them, in
the months after 9/11, according to a real estate executive.

Mr. Bergamo, founder of the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation,
which raises money to help families of injured or slain F.B.I. agents, is
a well-known figure among law enforcement officers for his interest in
all things related to policing. He was made an honorary police
commissioner several years ago by Police Commissioner Howard
Safir.

Mr. Bergamo is licensed by the Police Department to carry a Colt .45
handgun and two Smith & Wesson handguns, a .38-caliber revolver
and a 9-millimeter pistol, the police said. He has renewed the license
repeatedly over the last decade or so, the police said.

According to the executive, Mr. Kerik "went to Bergamo asking for an
apartment for emergency service workers."

It is unclear exactly who used the apartment and for how long, but
after the cleanup of the site settled into a routine, the executive said
Mr. Kerik "said he wanted to rent the apartment." Mr. Bergamo rented
it to him. Mr. Kerik paid for use of the apartment, but the amount was
not clear. Many apartments that were available in Battery Park City
after the attack on the trade center were rented at well below market
rates for months afterward.

After taking the apartment, Mr. Kerik, who is married with two children
and lived at the time in Riverdale, the Bronx, began to meet there with
Ms. Regan, said the person who spoke to Mr. Kerik about the matter.

That person said that one bedroom faced the pit of ground zero, and
that Ms. Regan visited it while Mr. Kerik was police commissioner,
meaning between Sept. 11 and Dec. 31, 2001. Mr. Kerik refused to
answer any questions yesterday regarding the apartment.

Ms. Regan, like Mr. Bergamo, received an honorary badge on Dec.
31, 2001, this one from Mr. Kerik himself. It was Mr. Kerik's last day
as police commissioner.

Questions have been raised in the past about the tradition of
bestowing these ceremonial badges, and whether they create the
appearance that those who receive them are in debt to those who
grant them. Bearers of the shields are not to become involved in law
enforcement activities.

Many residents of the apartment tower said this week that they were
unaware of Mr. Kerik's presence, although one man who requested
anonymity said that he boarded an elevator six months ago with him.
"I said to myself, 'Hey, that's Bernie Kerik,' " the man recalled. "It was
surprising. But then I thought, well, maybe he keeps a place down
here because he's involved with security and 9/11."

Contacted at the annual Milstein holiday party at the New York Public
Library on Monday night, Mr. Bergamo declined to comment and had
a reporter escorted out of the building.

Several people who know him describe Mr. Bergamo, who once ran
the Milstein family's Milford Plaza Hotel, as a police buff, a man who is
fascinated by law enforcement officers. In 1987, he was one of the
founders of the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation, whose board
included Ronald Perelman, chairman of Revlon, and Tommy Mottola,
the music executive.

Mr. Bergamo told Newsday last fall that each member must contribute
or raise $30,000 for the foundation. Some members, like Mr.
Bergamo, Mr. Perelman and Mr. Mottola, were made honorary police
commissioners and given badges. The group also issued parking
placards like those used by the New York police.

Several years ago, Mr. Bergamo undertook an assignment for his
boss, Howard Milstein, in connection with a $100 million lawsuit filed
by Mr. Milstein against John Kent Cooke, the former owner of the
Washington Redskins, over the developer's failed attempt to buy the
football team.

Posing as "Anthony Burke" and using a hidden tape recorder, Mr.
Bergamo arranged to bump into Mr. Cooke and the former Redskins
general manager, Charley Casserly, during a trip to Bermuda in an
effort to elicit damaging information.

He did not obtain any incriminating statements, but he did chalk up
over $6,500 in expenses.

Eric Lipton and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting for this article.