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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Tariq Ramadan fired as Rotterdam integration advisor for ties to Iranian regime

Tariq Ramadan fired as Rotterdam integration advisor for ties to Iranian regime

August 18, 2009

Rotterdam sacks integration advisor

Tuesday 18 August 2009

Rotterdam city council has sacked its controversial advisor on integration Tariq Ramadan, the NRC reports on Tuesday, quoting council sources.

The paper says officials believe Ramadan can no longer 'lead the dialogue in the city' because he himself has become part of the debate. Last week it emerged that Ramadan presents a weekly programme on Iran's Press TV which is paid for by the Iranian authorities.

Ramadan, 46, has been attached to the city council for two years and is a visiting professor at Erasmus University, a post paid for by Rotterdam, the paper says.

In an open letter in the NRC on Tuesday, Ramadan says: 'The present controversy says far more about the alarming state of politics in the Netherlands than about my person.' http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/08/rotterdam_sacks_integration_ad.php

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Rotterdam should get rid of this Islamist

Published: 17 August 2009

Anyone who, like Tariq Ramadan, works voluntarily for an immoral and extremely violent regime like that in Iran cannot be a 'builder of bridges' in the Netherlands.

OPINION

By Afshin Ellian

It is not always easy to debate with European Islamists. They often have two faces and many different tongues. They have one task: to normalise the perception of Salafism and Islamism in general in Europe.

Tariq Ramadan is an Islamist par excellence. When Frits Bolkestein dares to ask him critical questions, Bolkestein becomes a liar who wants to spread hate. The same thing happened with Henk Krol. No one is allowed to criticise Ramadan.

The municipality of Rotterdam and Erasmus University have appointed this smoothly polished Islamist as a "builder of bridges". A hefty sum of tax money was made available to pay him - tax money that was definitely not collected in Egypt.

What is the academic value of a builder of bridges? I realise that this can be interpreted by some as a racist question that is that is not permitted - critical questions posed to Islamists are often labelled as racist. To put it differently then: how does someone build a bridge between Muslims and non-Muslims in the Netherlands when he not only isn't Dutch, but doesn't speak a word of Dutch?

I am afraid that this too is a question in extremely bad taste in the eyes of the department of bridge builders in the multicultural industry. Every question as to the functioning of this slippery customer is taboo among multiculturalists. How about a neutral question then: does Ramadan do anything besides build bridges in the Netherlands? Yes, he works for PressTV.

PressTV is an English-language Iranian broadcaster. On July 2, 2007 it was opened by president Ahmadinejad. It is part of the Iranian state broadcasting system. What does the Islamic regime want to achieve with PressTV, which no doubt costs quite a bit?

Just like all other state broadcasters in Iran, this broadcaster broadcasts government propaganda. Who is it addressed to? The Muslims in Europe. Propaganda against Israel and the US and glorifying the Iranian state is the core business of PressTV. In summary, its message is: all the problems in the world can be traced back to the Israelis, the Zionists – in the past we would call them "those filthy Jews."

PressTV is nothing other than the English-language arm of anti-Semitic tyranny. And Ramadan, that lovely bridge builder, works for this broadcaster. His programme is called Islam and Life. A weekly show presented by Tariq Ramadan. The programme was first broadcast on 24 April of this year. He has since broadcast sixteen episodes.

In the past months PressTV has broadcast state propaganda about the cruel and violent oppression of millions of protesting Iranians, to the fury of the BBC and CNN. The reporting from PressTV became so suspect that an investigation was started in Great Britain into whether PressTV is independent enough to be allowed to broadcast from London, where PressTV has an enormous building. While Tehran has deported almost all Western journalists from the country and curbed its own media, the English-language Iranian propagandists are in London.

Day in, day out we have witnessed the atrocious actions of the Iranian government against defenceless civilians. And that continues unabated. Now even Karoubi (a mullah and opposition candidate) writes that the arrested demonstrators were raped in the Iranian prisons.

And what does our bridge builder Ramadan do? He makes programmes that are directly financed by the Iranian government. If a Muslim dies in the Palestinian territories, there is no end to the fury of Ramadan and his people. But the raped, abused and murdered young Iranians should not count on any sympathy. He works for a government of murderers and rapists, while we pay him a pretty penny in Rotterdam as reward for minimum effort.

The enlightened Ramadan makes talk shows for the Islamic fascists of Tehran; without any twinges of conscious, since the Islamic republic is evidently his ideal republic. It is clear where this Dutch-subsidised bridge builder is building his bridges to. To the fascist Islamic regime of Ahmadinejad.

The television broadcaster for which Ramadan works also has a site in Persian. That site reported last week that the tragic death of a Turkish woman in Amsterdam (the woman murdered in front of a day care centre) was a racist killing of an Islamic woman wearing a headscarf. As if she was murdered because of her headscarf. This lie is necessary to divert attention in Iran from actual political murders that are taking place there. This club of liars and state rapists is who Tariq Ramadan, the Rotterdam builder of bridges, works for.

Anyone who works for the immoral, extremely violent and anti-Semitic Iranian regime, not out of any necessity and certainly voluntarily, may not and cannot ever build bridges with Dutch money. And if Ramadan has unexpectedly built a small bridge, we should destroy it as quickly as possible. Because the other side of that bridge, the bank on which Islamic fascism thrives, must never be a Dutch polder.

Afshin Ellian is a columnist for NRC Handelsblad and a professor of law at Leiden university. He fled his native Iran in 1983. http://www.nrc.nl/international/opinion/article2330925.ece/Rotterdam_should_get_rid_of_this_Islamist

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