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important and urgent - Qutuz - 03-18-2005
Contact "60 Minutes" to Demand Muslim Response
to Distortions of Islam
(Los Angeles, 3/15/05) -- On Sunday, March 13, CBS' "60 Minutes" aired a segment examining the controversy over Muslim immigration in the Netherlands sparked by the August 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. Van Gogh was brutally murdered by a Muslim who found the film "Submission" blasphemous in its portrayal of Islam.
The segment, which focuses on the resulting backlash directed toward Dutch Muslims, features an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalian born writer of "Submission" and a member of Dutch Parliament. MPAC is appalled by the gross distortion of Quranic teachings featured in the "60 Minutes" segment, as well as the producers' failure to include a mainstream Muslim voice refuting Ms. Ali's false allegations against the Quran and Islam. MPAC calls on the producers of "60 Minutes" to provide equal airtime to alternative Muslim voices to respond to the false and malicious characterizations of Islam made by Ms. Ali and other interviewees.
SEE: "Slaughter and 'Submission'" (transcript from CBS' "60 Minutes")
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/11/...ain679609.shtml
In the segment, Ms. Ali states that the Quran is a "license for oppression" which says "you should be raped if you say 'no' to your husband." In the past, she has also called Prophet Muhammad a "perverted pedophile" who has "said a few things that not compatible with democracy." Her film, "Submission," portrays a Muslim woman who claims that God condones rape, oppression and violence towards women -- all of which are unequivocally condemned by the Quran.
"By leaving Ms. Ali's opinions unchallenged, 60 Minutes reinforces the stereotype that Muslims are a violent and misogynistic foreign entity in Western societies," said Communications Director Edina Lekovic. "This is not only an insult to Muslims, but a disservice to the cause of promoting awareness and acceptance of a religion and a people."
In their failure to include a Muslim response to derogatory comments made by Ms. Ali and Dutch officials, the producers of "60 Minutes" do not fulfill the basic journalistic standard of balance. Further, Correspondent Morley Safer fails to distinguish between the founding principles of Islam as a religion and social movement and the practices of Muslims, implicitly justifying the position of one Dutch sociologist quoted.
"Your holy book will be the object of criticism," says Paul Scheffer, a professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam. "It will be the object of interpretation, and sometimes of ridicule. And if you can't accept that, then you can't live here."
We call on American Muslims to contact the producers of "60 Minutes" to let them know:
1. We as an American Muslim community insist on the human right of self-definition, which includes our narrative voice in discourse on our text or our religion.
2. We as American Muslims believe that it is a grave danger to our country in a post-9/11 world that mass media negligently and or intentionally infuse American public opinion with hatemongering and Islamophobic propaganda.
3. We as American Muslims believe that there is neither dissonance nor friction between the founding principles of God's message to humanity and co-existence among peoples in countries of pluralism.
4. We as American Muslims demand that the "60 Minutes" provide ample opportunity for a legitimate reasonable musim voice to counter the damage done by the "Slaughter and 'Submission'" segment.
CONTACT:
JEFF FAGER
Executive Producer
"60 Minutes"
524 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019-2902
TEL: (212) 975-1073
FAX: (212) 975-9197
E-MAIL: 60m@cbsnews.com
Copy all emails to communications@mpac.org
[CONTACT: Edina Lekovic, 213-383-3443, communications@mpac.org]
http://mwlusa.org/mpac60min.html
important and urgent - Qutuz - 03-18-2005
60m@cbsnews.com
it won't take more than 5 minutes