Muslim academic and Rotterdam integration adviser Tariq Ramadan has come under fire for his work as presenter of a television programme on the Iranian state-funded international news network Press TV.

The Swiss academic works as an integration adviser for Rotterdam city council and is holds the Chair in 'Identity and Citizenship' at Rotterdam’s Erasmus University. Both the council and the university have expressed concern at Mr Ramadan’s role in the weekly television programme Islam and Life. The programme discusses Islam and “the daily challenges faced by its followers especially in the West”.
  

Rotterdam councillors have expressed concern that Mr Ramadan should be working for a network funded by the Iranian government, particularly in the light of the violent suppression of dissent in the country following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Three parties in Rotterdam city council – the conservative VVD, the local populist party Liveable Rotterdam and the Socialist Party – say the local authority should immediately dismiss Mr Ramadan as an adviser. The Labour Party has called for an explanation. Neither the city council nor the university was aware of Mr Ramadan’s work for the Iranian network, which emerged on Wednesday in the Dutch online higher education magazine Science Guide.

Mouthpiece
Press TV has been attacked in the British media and by Iranian dissident organisations such as Solidarity With Iranian People's Protests for being a mouthpiece of the Iranian government.

In July a well-known British radio presenter Nick Ferarri resigned from his show on the Press TV, which broadcasts in English and operates from London, in protest at the Iranian regime’s suppression of protests in the wake of the presidential election. However, British MPs Derek Conway and George Galloway, and high-profile British journalists such as Andrew Gilligan continue to work for the network.

In a statement to de Volkskrant newspaper on Friday, Tariq Ramadan said that he had been free to choose the content of his broadcasts and had not had any contact with the Iranian government, and that the oppression and murder of citizens was to be condemned.

Anti-gay
Mr Ramadan became the subject of controversy in the Netherlands earlier this year when the Gay Krant magazine alleged that he had made anti-gay remarks that were “not intended for Western ears”.

In response the conservative VVD demanded that Rotterdam city council should end its relationship with him. In protest the party then withdrew from its coalition with the Green Left, Labour and Christian Democrat parties.

Moderate
Mr Ramadan characterises himself as a bridge-building moderate in the debate on Muslim attitudes to homosexuality. In a response on the Gay Krant website he says that “all the world's major religions and spiritual traditions – from the majority view in Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism to Christianity and Islam – condemn and forbid homosexuality.” He concludes that “European Muslims have the right to express their convictions while at the same time respecting the humanity and rights of individuals.”