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Advocates Say U.S. Bars Many Academics

Government Says It Rarely Uses Law Regarding Those Who

'Espoused Terrorism'

By Anushka Asthana

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, August 4, 2006; A07

 

When Waskar Ari traveled to Bolivia last year, after

completing a doctorate at Georgetown University, he meant to

stay there for 10 days. The historian was due back last fall

to start a professorship at the University of Nebraska. A

year later, he is still waiting to return.

 

Ari, an Aymara Indian, is one of a growing number of foreign

scholars whose visas have been revoked or whose applications

have been denied -- barred, according to civil rights and

academic groups, for their ideological or political views.

While the federal government denies this is happening,

free-speech advocates and Ari's attorney say the practice is

reaching near-epidemic proportions.

 

" We have a serious problem, " said Robert Kreiser of the

American Association of University Professors, who has

written to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the

issue and says the problem is growing. " This places a

serious chill on the exercise of academic freedom. "

 

The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking up to 55

cases, including Ari's, in which it thinks people have been

banned for their beliefs. While ideology is rarely given as

the official reason, the ACLU said academics increasingly

are being interrogated about their political beliefs when

they apply for visas.

 

" The government is using ideological exclusion laws as a way

of manipulating the political and economic debate, " said

Jameel Jaffer, deputy director of the ACLU's national

security program. " They are using the laws to deny Americans

the right to hear views. "

 

The government denies that charge. Jarrod Agen, a spokesman

for the Department for Homeland Security, said: " There are a

host of reasons why an individual may be denied a visa, but

their ideological or political beliefs are not reasons for

denying entry. "

 

Ari said he has heard only rumors to suggest that his

application is being held up by national security concerns.

His supporters, including those at the University of

Nebraska, Georgetown and the American Historical

Association, say there is no evidence to bar him and have

begun a letter-writing campaign for him.

 

Ari's Washington attorney, Michael Maggio, speculated that

Ari had been wrongly linked to the indigenous movement led

by Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, a strident populist who

has been critical of Washington's policies in the region.

 

But Ari said he has criticized Morales and would like to see

Bolivia and the United States more closely linked: " I don't

understand. I am considered to be very pro-America in

Bolivia. I am in limbo. I have missed two semesters, and I

may lose another. "

 

Others around the world are in similar situations. In June,

the ACLU said, Yoannis Milios, a professor from Greece, was

detained and interrogated about his politics for several

hours at JFK Airport before his visa was revoked. The group

said that the academic, who was scheduled to present a paper

at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was sent

back to Athens.

 

Last year, Dora Maria Téllez, who was a Sandinista leader in

the 1979 revolution that overthrew Nicaragua's U.S.-backed

dictator, gave up a post at Harvard University after the

government rejected her visa application. The ACLU has said

that, although during the 1980s Téllez became a

parliamentary leader and minister of health in Nicaragua,

she was excluded because of her role in the revolution.

 

The highest-profile case is that of Tariq Ramadan, a

prominent Swiss Islamic scholar whose visa was revoked. At

the time, the government referred to a provision of the USA

Patriot Act that applies to citizens who have " endorsed or

espoused terrorism. " Ramadan applied for a different visa.

When this wasn't acted on, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against

the government, and a federal judge ordered in June that the

State Department must act on his visa request.

 

The State Department said that it could not comment on an

ongoing case but that the ideological-exclusion provision in

the Patriot Act has rarely been used. Tony Edson, deputy

assistant secretary for visa services, said: " Contrary to

suggestion, we know of only one case in which an applicant

was denied a visa on the basis of the individual's having

endorsed or espoused terrorism. The individual involved had

a following of weapons-carrying individuals and made public

speeches calling for the assassination of a high-level U.S.

government official. "

 

The ACLU's Jaffer said he found that assertion surprising.

He said his organization had received information from the

State Department through a Freedom of Information Act

request that suggested the Patriot Act provision had been

used more than once.

 

Nevertheless, he said, there was no question that foreign

scholars were being increasingly targeted since Sept. 11,

2001. Jaffer said the United States could exclude

controversial applicants without invoking the Patriot Act.

 

If the United States is excluding visa applicants based on

ideology, there will be ramifications, said Robert M.

O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the

Protection of Free Expression.

 

" It is not just the people who are turned down, " he said.

" If there are a number of sensitive and conscientious people

who decide it is not worth coming at all and decide to go to

another country, then we in the U.S. are the losers. "

 

 

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