Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, convicted on enchantment of rape and sexual coercion by a Geneva courtroom, is a Swiss mental accused of masking violence and radicalism behind a light facade.
Ramadan, 62, is the grandson of the founding father of the Islamist motion the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and wrote his doctoral thesis on his ancestor.
He basked within the public highlight within the 2000s as a professor at Britain’s prestigious Oxford college, lecturing throughout Europe in addition to Morocco, Qatar and Japan, drawing crowds of scholars wherever he went.
Named by Time Journal in 2004 among the many 100 most influential folks on the earth for his affect on European Muslims, Ramadan has nonetheless stirred controversy all through his profession.
He has rejected allegations of anti-Semitism as makes an attempt to silence what he sees as legit criticism of the Israeli state.
And French defenders of the nation’s fierce secularism have accused him of smuggling an identitarian subtext inside his modernising message, encouraging younger women to put on the Islamic headband or spreading spiritual fundamentalism.
Effectively turned-out with trademark trimmed gray hair and beard, Ramadan engaged in verbal jousts with opponents together with French polemicist Eric Zemmour, who went on to face as a far-right presidential candidate in 2022.
He fought again towards allegations of fundamentalism, saying he inspired younger Muslims to contain themselves of their societies, calling the headband a matter of non-public selection, urging “contextualisation” of Islam’s founding texts and condemning violence.
Nonetheless, his try to accumulate French nationality along with his Swiss passport to “present a concrete, optimistic instance of upholding the values of the Republic” was rejected in 2016 by the then prime minister Manuel Valls.
– Court docket battles in France –
Ramadan’s fall from grace started in 2017, when he was first focused with allegations of sexual violence in France.
In complete, 4 ladies in France in the end accused him of rapes between 2009 and 2016, whereas a Swiss lady transformed to Islam filed a prison criticism in 2018 for a rape she mentioned befell in Geneva 10 years earlier than.
The Swiss case is the one by which Ramadan has now been convicted on enchantment.
Because the allegations broke, he put his 12-year professorship in up to date Islamic research on the College of Oxford on maintain as help for him haemorrhaged, together with from Qatar.
His 2018 admission that he had intercourse exterior his many years of marriage, by which he had 4 kids with a French lady convert, tarnished his picture for some spiritual and group leaders.
Saying he suffers from a number of sclerosis and melancholy, Ramadan retired early.
Alongside the Swiss case, a Paris appeals courtroom dominated in June this 12 months that Ramadan ought to be tried for raping three ladies between 2009 and 2016, a call his legal professionals have challenged.
The scholar spent greater than 9 months in pre-trial detention in 2018, however was launched in November that 12 months.
– ‘Fragile’ ladies –
French investigators in 2023 mentioned that they had recognized a sample throughout all of the rape allegations.
Ramadan would enter personal conversations with ladies who had been “particularly fragile, with tumultuous life tales, in search of love, validation and spirituality”.
The discussions would rapidly take an intimate after which sexual flip, prosecutors mentioned, resulting in an in-person assembly.
Psychiatric specialists instructed the investigation that the ladies had been fervent admirers of Ramadan as a public determine with spiritual and tutorial credentials.
However when it got here to the conferences, a number of ladies described a whole change of character, with Ramadan changing into violent, starting from slaps to blows and non-consensual penetration.
Ramadan mentioned he had not carried out “a single act, behaviour or intercourse act that was not mentioned beforehand” with the ladies.
