FOX To Air Controversial Documentary on Islam

"A controversial film that PBS axed from its documentary series about the post-Sept. 11 world will be broadcast for the first time nationwide this week by the FOX News Channel.

The documentary, originally titled "Islam vs. Islamists," was produced by ABG Films with $675,000 in public funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It was originally slated to run earlier this year as part of PBS' "America at a Crossroads" series.

The film follows moderate Muslims who have challenged the "Islamists" who espouse a more radical view of their religion. The film shows the Islamists advocating, among other things, the imposition of Sharia law on Muslims in the West, the stoning of women who commit adultery, and even violence and terrorism.

"Islam vs. Islamists" will be seen in its entirety as part of an all-new FOX News Channel special. The 90-minute FOX program, called "Inside Islam: Faith vs. Fanatics," includes interviews with "Islam vs. Islamists" director and producer Martyn Burke and executive producer Frank Gaffney. It will be broadcast at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 20.

Burke and Gaffney told FOX News they didn't set out to make a conservative documentary, but rather one that portrays the plights of some moderate Muslims since Sept. 11.

"The cancer that is within our community is I don't believe the majority," said Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Wisconsin-born Muslim who lives in Arizona, in the film. "I think it's a minority, it's a minor, minor, minor, minority that are radicalized or violent but the majority I believe look at the lens of politics through an Islamist lens.

"If we give them and let them handle the mantle of religion that they seek to exploit for their own geo-political issues all over the globe, then we are really going to lose this war."

After viewing the film PBS executives in charge of the "America at a Crossroads" series told the filmmakers that it was "alarmist" and "overreaching" and that PBS would not run it.

Burke and Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, said that they made a series of changes to accommodate PBS. Ultimately, however, they concluded the problem wasn't their film, but liberal bias at PBS.

In an interview with FOX News, Burke makes explosives charges about the PBS executives he dealt with, Jeff Bieber and Leo Eaton.

"In the first meeting, they said to me, 'Fire your partners.'" Burke said. "And I said 'Why?' They said, 'Because they are conservatives.'"

How very strange. PBS afraid of the truth, alarmed that Conservatives would be...gasp...allowed to work unfettered.

If it ain't bias, it ain't liberal, and it sure ain't PBS.