Is Tariq Ramadan a Victim of French Justice?
French-bashing is one of the few pleasures still allowed in Europe nowadays, and it seems a bit unkind to deprive you of it. Sadly, a recent piece, by Peter Oborne, accuses the entire French justice system of treating Tariq Ramadan, the sometime academic, stealth Islamist, serial liar and alleged rapist, like a latter-day hero from Les Misérables, supposedly "rotting" in a French jail as a victim of the complete "abandonment of due process". Not quite. And then, of course, comes the trump card: all the accusers are supposedly Islamophobes. "Christelle" is accused of founding a pro-Marine Le Pen website, which her lawyer denies. Henda Ayari, a former Salafist, is dismissed as a hater of her former religion, as if this were proof enough of her putting herself through the current judicial ordeal. Both have received death and rape threats; another Ramadan accuser has apparently been severely beaten up near her home.