“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.

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," said Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Islamic group. Citing a public opinion survey conducted by Cornell University last year, Ahmed said television influences viewers' perceptions of Muslims. "There aren't any positive or even neutral portrayals of Muslims on TV; whenever Muslims or Arabs are portrayed it is always in a stereotypical way," she 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," she added. "We did bring that to Fox's attention."

Letting stereotypes slip by

(Source: The Harvard Crimson, Cambridge, MA – January 12, 2005)

By Jade Jurdi and Magdey A. Abdallah
This past week, the Undergraduate Council presented an advance screening of the first three episodes of Fox’s popular television show, “24.” In doing so, the council insensitively aired an offensive portrayal of Middle Eastern Americans. Given the simplistic depiction of Middle Eastern Americans in Fox’s “24,” the show was inconsistent with the values of cultural awareness and diversity that the Undergraduate Council and the University seek to promote.

The show portrays a Turkish-American Muslim family in Los Angeles, Western in appearance and lifestyle, as a terrorist sleeper cell. In a news story that appeared in the Edmonton Times, a Fox spokesman refused comment when asked about the questionable content of the show. But the fact remains that 24’s facile and harmful representation of this “model” terrorist cell exceeds what is realistic and what is necessary for the show’s entertainment value. The show makes sure to convey how long this family lived in the United States, participated in its commerce and even utilized its public schools. Over the breakfast table, a familiar setting to us all, the father tells the family: “What we will accomplish today will change the world. We are fortunate that our family has been chosen to do this.” “24” has essentially turned the kitchen table of an average Muslim family into the center of all the evil that has gripped our nation. The implication of the episode is that one can never be certain that the Muslim or Arab family next door are not terrorists. Harvard should be the last place such a mentality is accepted.

Many Arabs and Muslims have made America their home, contributing to its economy and culture and appreciating the rights guaranteed by citizenship and residency in our great country. Arabs and Muslims serve in the United States armed forces and intelligence agencies, attempting to fight the very terrorists that they are suspected of being. Arab Americans have also risen to the highest echelons of power in this country, counting among them former Sen. George Mitchell D-Maine, Sen. John Sununu Jr., R-N.H., former Kerry Campaign Chairperson and Governor of New Hampshire Jeanne Shaheen and numerous members of Congress. Fox’s show fails to even include an Arab-American translator working in the “Counter Terrorism Unit,” even though many currently do. 24’s only depiction of Arabs and Muslims is as evil terrorists.

Despite Arab Americans’ relative success integrating into American society, the sad reality is that many Arab and Muslim Americans have experienced racism first hand. Such inflammatory programming only serves to strengthen the negative stereotypes that lead to such acts. Many members of the Arab and Muslim communities have lost their homes, places of worship and businesses to arson—some have even lost their lives. Balbir Singh Sodhi, an Indian gas station owner, was murdered in what was concluded to be a hate crime. Sodhi wore a turban and as a result his attackers believed he was Arab. Even in the liberal bastion of Massachusetts we are not immune to such occurrences, as just last month a mosque was burnt to the ground in the Boston suburb of Springfield. In a country where many people are inadvertently suspicious of Muslim and Arab Americans and where few citizens actually have substantial contact with these minority groups, a show like 24 can greatly affect the perception of the community.

Even at Harvard we frequently find ourselves having to prove that despite our heritage we are not supporters of terrorism. While we believe that the members of the Undergraduate Council had no malicious intent in airing this show, we do feel that given the known general content of the show and other Fox programming, the council should have at least reviewed the content before showing the program to the Harvard community. Entertaining the student body shouldn’t come at the cost of alienating different groups of students. Especially in the case of issues surrounding terrorism, it is the council’s responsibility to exercise extreme sensitivity or risk inciting parts of the student body against each other.

On behalf of the Society of Arab Students, we hope the council will communicate, through a statement or other appropriate means, that it believes the screening of the show was a mistake. And we want the members of the Harvard community who viewed the program to consider what we have said today in the hopes it minimizes the impact of “24” and shows with similar themes on a our peers, for whom we hold the deepest respect.

Jade Jurdi is treasurer of the Society of Arab Students. Magdey Abdallah is publicity chairperson of the Society of Arab Students.

On February 15 National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" did a brief story on the controversy: LINK to NPR's "Morning Edition" then clik on the "Listen" icon (2:00) (NOTE: after the report has finished use the BACK arrow to return here)

Muslims Slam Their Portrayal in "24"

By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press Writer; March 9, 2005

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A plate of spicy stuffed cabbage leaves and a cup of mint tea before him, Yosry Bekhiet sat down and turned on the television for a late dinner one recent Monday night. On the screen, he saw Muslim terrorists gain control of a nuclear plant, causing it to melt down. One of the leaders of the plot shot his own wife and tried to shoot his son, fearing they would thwart his plans. (And this was after kidnapping the U.S. defense secretary and trying to behead him live on the Internet.)

Bekhiet was watching "24," the popular Fox action series starring Kiefer Sutherland as a government agent who battles bloodthirsty Islamic terrorists. The show has garnered high ratings, but also has angered Muslims across the nation over the way their community is portrayed. "It's disgusting," Bekhiet said after watching an episode with an Associated Press reporter. "My own kids, if they see this show, they might hate me." Bekhiet, an engineer with the state Department of Transportation, is worried that the fictional Araz family is the image most of America have of Muslims.

"It seems like on television, everybody has their turn as the bad guys: It happened to the Italians, the Russians. Now it's our turn," he said. In January, a nationwide Muslim civil rights group, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations met with Fox executives to complain about the show. A compromise was reached in which the network agreed to distribute CAIR's public service announcements to local affiliates. And last month, Sutherland himself appeared in a commercial during the broadcast urging viewers to realize that the show's villains are not representative of Muslims.

"While terrorism is obviously one of the most critical challenges facing our nation and the world, it is important to recognize that the American Muslim community stands firmly beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting all forms of terrorism," Sutherland said. "So in watching `24,' please, bear that in mind." Fox spokesman Scott Grogin said the network would not comment on Muslim reaction to the show other than to note the meeting with CAIR and the distribution of the public service announcements. "We've listened to their concerns and tried to work with them," he said.

Rabiah Ahmed, a CAIR official who attended the meeting with the network executives, said Muslims are concerned with how others view them, particularly in the mass media. "For us it's a sensitive and urgent situation because we are facing a backlash after Sept. 11 and we need to defend our interests and our image. We understand that it's entertainment and fiction. Our concern is that others may not." She said Fox promised that positive Muslim characters will emerge in future episodes.

On the episode Bekhiet watched, Sutherland's character, agent Jack Bauer, apprehends Dina Araz, the wife of one of the terrorist masterminds, after one nuclear plant has already melted down. He begs her to tell him where the device is that can override the computer program that hijacked the reactors, sending them out of control, pleading that millions of innocent people will die if she does not. "Every war has casualties," she tells him coldly, a bullet from her husband's gun still lodged in her bloodied arm. "No one is innocent."

Shohreh Aghdashloo, the Iranian-born actress who plays Dina Araz, told Time magazine she had refused for years to play terrorists, saying they were among the only roles offered to actresses from the Middle East. She agreed to join "24" knowing it would draw criticism from Muslims. "But this role was a full-dimensional character," she told the magazine. "She's a very, very strong woman, and she has many faces. And things may not be what they seem."

Mohamed Heva, a computer network administrator from Washington Township, also watched the episode at Bekhiet's home. He suspects this season's plot line was intended not only to entertain, but to validate the Bush administration's foreign policy. "Sometimes I feel like it's being done on purpose, to instigate things and to let people know what the administration is doing is right," he said. "It makes people look at every Muslim as a terrorist. These guys want to melt down reactors and kill Americans. That makes people hate us even more."

Jumana Judeh, an activist in Dearborn, Mich., where the country's largest Arab-American community lives, said after watching one episode of '24' she finally understood how deeply offended an Italian-American friend of hers is over programs like "The Sopranos" or "The Godfather" movies. "This feeds into what's been happening to us since Sept. 11," she said. "We are the new kid on the block, and we're going to keep getting picked on and picked on and picked on until some new group comes along to take our place."

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