Fox Cuts Out Anti-Muslim Scenes from “24”

“We thank Fox for the opportunity to address the Muslim community’s concerns and for the willingness of network officials to take those concerns seriously in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation,” Rabiah Ahmed, Communications Coordinator of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a press release e-mailed to IslamOnline.net Saturday, January 15.

Following a January 12 meeting with representatives from CAIR, the largest US Muslim civil liberties advocacy group in the country, Fox officials promised that the popular series will be balanced in its portrayal of Muslims.

“There aren’t any positive or even neutral portrayals of Muslims on TV,” the BBC quoting Ms Ahmed as regretting.

“When Muslims or Arabs are portrayed, it is always in a stereotypical way.”

Premiered on January 10, the drama portrays a Muslim family as a terrorist “sleeper cell,” who are plotting attacks inside the US.

A young man is seen helping his parents mastermind a plot to kill as many Americans by launching an attack on a commuter train.

The drama showed the mother poisoning her son’s non-Muslim girlfriend because she poses a threat to their plans.

The US secretary of state is also seen taken hostage by the “Muslim terrorists.”

It climaxes with the defense secretary shown on an Internet video tape like those coming out of US-occupied Iraq.

Pro-Muslims Ad

Fox further decided to distribute a CAIR public service announcement (PSA) to network affiliates to be aired in proximity to “24.”

CAIR’s 30 and 60-second PSA feature American Muslims of European, African-American, Hispanic, and Native American heritage.

Each person in the spots states how he/she and his/her family have served America and ends by saying, “I am an American Muslim.”

“What we are hoping to do is to try and mitigate the damages of the stereotypes because it can bring real-life consequences on American Muslims and their lives here,” Ms Ahmed said.

“When average Americans don’t have any personal interaction with Muslims, whether it be at work or at school, they base their perception of Islam and Muslims from what they see on TV.”

CAIR urged State Department officials in a meeting on January 13 to issue a report on Islamophobia across the world.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad presented in the meeting — attended by Assistant Secretary Patricia de Stacy Harrison, Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher and Ambassador William Burns — a proposal for cooperative efforts to challenge both Islamophobia and anti-Americanism.

A recent nation-wide poll, conducted by the Cornell University, showed that at least 44 percent of the Americans backs curbing Muslims’ civil rights and monitoring their places of worship.

A May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded that Arab Americans and the Muslim community in the US have taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.