24 Receives Complaints from Muslim Groups Within Almost 24 Hours

Since the two-night season premiere of 24, I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, it has officially hit the floor with a booming thud. It has taken Muslim groups less than two-days to complain about the storyline for season 6 of the TV show 24. One of the groups trying to fight back over the series is the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Council said that they had a conference call on Wednesday with the Executives at the Fox network. In the call, they protested what was currently taking place on the show and "requested" a more positive spin on the way Muslims are portrayed. However, as of yet Fox has not caved to the organizations demands/requests. Wednesday night they issued a statement saying "they had not singled out any ethnic or religious group for blame in creating its characters."

Sireen Sawaf, an official at the Muslim Public Affairs Council (based out of Los Angeles), is a big fan of 24. She liked how the show had previously gone out of their way to show non-Muslim terror cells. Now that season 6 is showing Muslim terrorists act as Palestinian-styled "suicide bombers", among other things, Sawaf has said "But I'm concerned about the image it ingrains in the minds of the American public and the American government, particularly when you have anti-Muslim statements spewing from the mouths of government officials." So according to Ms. Sawaf's statement, it was okay for the producers of 24 to portray Russians, Germans, a white President of the US, or even a blond man as being a terrorist, but once they begin to portray a Muslim as a terrorist it is not okay.

An immigration lawyer in New Jersey, Sohail Mohammed, actually watched the season premiere with a reporter from the Associated Press. Mohammed states "I was shocked. Somewhere, some lunatic out there watching this will do something to an innocent American Muslim because he believes what he saw on TV." Mohammed represents some of the detainees from the 9/11 "dragnet". It will be interesting to see how Mr. Mohammed handles the continuing season of 24.