TARIQ Ramadan - the Muslim academic banned from entering the US - was consulted by the Howard government last year on how to prevent the radicalisation of Muslims in Australia.
Banned Muslim advised Coalition
Sarah Elks | March 04, 2008 TARIQ Ramadan - the Muslim academic banned from entering the US - was consulted by the Howard government last year on how to prevent the radicalisation of Muslims in Australia.
The professor of Islamic studies at Oxford University advised eight Department of Immigration officials via a video conference last June.
The scholar - accused of tailoring his message for Western audiences - told a conference in Brisbane yesterday that Muslim immigrants could practise their religion while still embracing the culture of their adopted country.
After the speech, Professor Ramadan confirmed he had previously advised the Howard government on Islamic integration, saying he had recommended strategies and policies to promote "a sense of belonging" for Muslim immigrants.
"We have to work on, first from within the Muslim community, a better understanding as a society of the culture and the identity (of Australia) and all these things to avoid people in the grey area from being attracted (to radicalisation)," he said he told the Department of Immigration.
Professor Ramadan was banned from entering the US in 2004 after the US Government found he had donated $940 to two humanitarian organisations that gave money to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. He has consistently denied links to terrorism and again defended his donations yesterday.
"I gave this money between 1998 and 2002 - one year before this organisation was blacklisted in the States," he said.
He continued, to laughs from the audience: "I should then have reasonably known, one year before the Department of Homeland Security, that this organisation would be blacklisted?"
Laurie Ferguson, federal Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs, introduced Professor Ramadan at the conference on Islam in the Western world, describing him as one of the "most influential international experts" on the subject.
"Professor Ramadan has already made an important contribution to Australian government thinking on Islam and the West, through a video-link discussion between London and Canberra last year," he said.
A Department of Immigration and Citizenship spokesman confirmed the department had sought the advice.
"Professor Ramadan was approached by DIAC because of his work in the area of Islamic integration into Western societies," he said. "This was of direct relevance to the work DIAC was doing under the National Action Plan to Build on Social Cohesion, Harmony and Security."
The National Action Plan was established after the 2005 London bombings to help integrate Muslims into Australian society.
Professor Ramadan yesterday spoke for more than an hour to hundreds of academics, students and ministers of religion at the conference at Griffith University.
He said it was possible for immigrants to be Muslim by religion and Australian by culture, while still remembering their past in their home country.
Professor Ramadan said it was possible for Muslim immigrants to belong to the international Islamic community without undermining their loyalty to their adopted country.
Professor Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's largest Islamist movement, which has been accused of being radical and fundamentalist.
He has also advised the British Government and was named one of the 21st century's great innovators by Time magazine.
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