WASHINGTON -- Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan has filed suit against President Reagan and three Cabinet members, insisting that a ban on travel to Libya violates 'the freedom to worship God.'
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by Farrakhan and the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, comes days before the controversial leader is to return from an 11-country tour of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, travels that included a visit with Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
Reagan, citing Libyan-sponsored terrorist activities, issued a presidential executive order in January that enforced a State Department ban on nearly all travel to Libya and a Treasury Department restriction on business transactions with the country.
Besides Reagan, the suit named Secretary of State George Shultz, Treasury Secretary James Baker and Attorney General Edwin Meese. It also listed a reported threat by Meese in early February to prosecute Farrakhan if he followed through on a pledge made during a National Press Club appearance to travel to Libya.
'We are testing today, on behalf of all liberty-loving persons, the capacity of this country to allow its citizenry the freedom to worship God, each in his own way,' said a Farrakhan spokesman.
'If this is truly a government of laws, and not of men, then the Reagan administration is wayward, and it becomes incumbent upon the courts to set justice aright.'
Farrakhan alleged in the suit the restrictions 'are calculated to have a chilling effect on his constitutionally protected right to freedom of religion, free speech, and travel by threatening incarceration for his travel to and presence in Libya and thus separating and isolating him from his brethren in faith.'
The Nation of Islam complained that the economic sanctions interfere with the group's repayment of a $5 million loan from the Islamic Call Society -- an agency of the Libyan people's government 'whose common bond ... is the propagation of Islam.'
Farrakhan, 52, embarked on his global tour Feb. 6, visiting various religious leaders and heads of state during his trip. The lawsuit notes that Farrakhan in mid-March 'arrived in Libya aboard an Aeroflot flight' and four days later criticized U.S. foreign policy in an speech before the Second Mathaba Conference in Tripoli.
He met with Gadhafi shortly after the U.S. bombing raid on Libya in April.
The federal court was asked to rule that Farrakhan did not violate the travel ban and that his Tripoli speech was protected by the First Amendment. The judge also was asked to rule that Farrakhan did not violate economic sanctions against Libya and that the restrictions interfere with the group's right 'to free exercise of religion.'
