CW: Sexual violence, assault, rape.
The prominent Oxford academic and Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has been sentenced by a Paris criminal court to an 18-year jail term for rape offences committed between 2009 and 2016. Ramadan was convicted of the rape of three women, two years after he was imprisoned for a separate rape offence in Switzerland.
Ramadan was employed by the University of Oxford as Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at St Antony’s College. During his tenure, in October 2017, he was accused by two women of rape, sexual assault, violence, and harassment at the height of the Me Too movement. Ramadan continued to teach until November, when he took an agreed leave of absence from Oxford. At the time, the University said that the leave “allows Professor Ramadan to address the extremely serious allegations made against him”, but “implies no presumption or acceptance of guilt”.
In January 2018, he was detained by French police and taken into custody, where he was formally charged with two counts of rape. Following this, further accusations against him emerged, with more women coming forward with claims that he had made unwanted sexual advances towards them, including allegations of violence and psychological abuse.
As a result, he was formally charged in 2020 with the rape of two more women in France and faced a further charge of rape in Switzerland. Ramadan has consistently denied the charges against him, claiming that they are politically motivated as part of a smear campaign.
Ramadan officially left his position at the University of Oxford in 2021. A spokesperson for the University told Cherwell: “Professor Ramadan left the employment of the University of Oxford in June 2021 by mutual agreement on the basis of early retirement on grounds of ill-health.”
In 2023, Yann Le Mercier was convicted of cyberharassing Ramadan and another individual because of the ongoing court proceedings. At the time, he received the heaviest prison sentence for a cyberbullying case. Ramadan currently has 2.4 million followers on Facebook.
Ramadan was tried by a Swiss appeals court in 2024 over an incident in Geneva in 2008. He was convicted of rape and sexual coercion and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, overturning a previous acquittal. His subsequent appeal against the sentence was rejected.
Ramadan failed to appear in court in Paris this month. His lawyers attributed his absence to his hospitalisation in Switzerland on account of multiple sclerosis, “violating a conditional release order that required him to remain in France”, as Le Monde reports. Prior to the trial, however, a court-ordered medical assessment had confirmed his fitness to plead.
He was convicted in absentia for the rape of three women and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment. Following the verdict, the court issued an arrest warrant and imposed a permanent ban from French territory, coming into effect upon completion of the sentence. The judgment is not final and is expected to be appealed.
This case comes amid broader concerns about the University of Oxford’s handling of sexual misconduct and assault allegations. These concerns have been further intensified by controversy surrounding another professor who was not suspended despite facing allegations of rape.
