PBS Pulls Islam Doc./ Producers Cry Censorship!

PBS won’t be airing Islam Vs. Islamists, and the blame is flying. The documentary took a look at the plight of moderate Muslims who are silenced by Islamic extremists. WETA commissioned the doc. as part of the America at a Crossroads series.

One of the producers, Leo Eaton, a is public broadcasting regular. He’s not know for his political docs. but his father is Charles Le Gai Eaton, one of Britain’s most notable converts to Islam.

Frank Gaffney Jr., founder of the Center for Security Policy, was a partner of producer Martyn Burke. Burke says he was ordered to fire Gaffney and another co-producer, Alex Alexiev, also affiliated with the think tank. Burke claims WETA tried being to censor the film and cut out a segment featuring Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. WETA hired an advisor Aminah Beverly McCloud who admires Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam,a regular beneficiary of extremist Wahabi largesse.
She showed rough-cut segments to Nation of Islam officials, who threatened to sue.

Jeff Bieber, WETA’s executive producer for Crossroads, said that the film was yanked because of “serious structural problems (and)…was irresponsible because the writing was alarmist, and it wasn’t fair.”

A PBS show with sloppy structure? A PBS show that’s unfair? Say it isn’t so!

Among Burke’s other complaints:

A WETA manager pressed to eliminate a key perspective of the film: The claim that Muslim radicals are pushing to establish “parallel societies” in America and Europe governed by Shariah law rather than sectarian courts.

After grants were issued, Crossroads managers commissioned a new film that overlapped with Islam vs. Islamists and competed for the same interview subjects.

Stay tuned.

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