From IslamOnline, with thanks to Xuereb:
WASHINGTON, January 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) — The Fox television network has decided to remove some stereotypical aspects about American Muslims from its action drama “24” thanks to immediate action from community leaders.
“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.
Yes, all this is fanciful and prejudicial. 24 should have made it a band of Methodists. That would have been much fairer and more true to life.