Islamic scholar Ramadan hit with new gang rape allegation

[Valin]

New Straits Times

Aug 26 2019

PARIS: Tariq Ramadan, a leading Islamic scholar charged in France with raping two women, has also been accused of taking part in the gang rape of a journalist, French judicial sources said Sunday.

The sources confirmed reports on Europe 1 radio and in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper that a woman in her 50s had accused Ramadan, 56, of raping her along with a member of his staff when she went to interview the academic at a hotel in Lyon in May 2014.

The woman, who filed a criminal complaint in May 2019, also accused Ramadan of issuing “threats or acts of intimidation” aimed at dissuading her from reporting the alleged attack to the police, the judicial sources added.

Ramadan, a married father of four whose grandfather founded Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, was a professor at Oxford University until he was forced to take leave when rape allegations surfaced at the height of the “Me Too” movement in late 2017.

(Snip)

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It created a worldwide furore when Tariq Ramadan was barred from US entry to accept a prestigious appointment at Notre Dame University. After all, as a major profile in The New York Times Magazine observed, Ramadan is one of the Muslim world’s most charismatic and influential figures, with a long career at prominent European universities advocating peaceful coexistence with the West.

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By comparing Ramadan’s own writing with his coverage in the press, Berman touches on many of today’s most important issues — the debate over the veil in French schools, contemporary anti-Semitism, anti-feminism, and the presence of home-grown Islamic fundamentalism in the West — and presents a stunning commentary about the media’s inability to detect dangerous ideas in contemporary society.

 

 

[Valin]

France expands rape probe against Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan

AFP , Sunday 29 Sep 2019

The French authorities have expanded an investigation against Tariq Ramadan, a leading Islamic scholar already charged in France with raping two women, to include evidence from two more alleged victims, judicial sources said Sunday.

Ramadan, a Swiss national, 57, has already been charged in France with raping a disabled woman in 2009 and a feminist activist in 2012. He denies all the charges.

Paris prosecutors earlier this month instructed the investigating magistrate handling the case to look into the evidence from "two new potential victims" over incidents that took place in 2015 and 2016, a judicial source told AFP, confirming a report in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

Investigators took witness statements from the two women after they were identified from documents found on his computers. The women themselves have not filed a criminal complaint.

But they both say they were led into a brutal sexual relationship with Ramadan, one from November-December 2015 and the other in March 2016.

(Snip)

[Valin]

New rape charges against Islamist scholar Tariq Ramadan

AFP, Paris

Friday, 14 February 2020

Islamist scholar Tariq Ramadan has been charged with raping two women besides two others he was already facing accusations over, his lawyer told AFP Thursday.

The 57-year-old Ramadan, a Swiss national, was already charged in France with raping a disabled woman in 2009 and a feminist activist in 2012. He denies the charges.

On Thursday, as Ramadan appeared before investigating magistrates in Paris, more charges were added relating to two other women who were identified by investigators from photos found on his computer.

He arrived for the session accompanied by his wife.

“There is a desire to pursue Tariq Ramadan at all costs and against the evidence,” his lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny told AFP.
“This case is becoming grotesque.”

The two women themselves had not originally filed complaints, but both say they were involved in brutal sexual relationships with Ramadan - one from November-December 2015 and the other in March 2016.

“It was something other than physical rape, it went beyond that... there was a moral rape,” one of the women had said in testimony seen by AFP.

(Snip)