Mullah Krekar: NBC The Wanted TV Show
Mullah Krekar who came to Norway as a refugee from northern Iraq in 1991. His real name is Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad. Mullah Krekar is the leader of Kurdish Ansar al-Islam.
In July, 2009, Mullah Krekar was one of the subjects of the NBC’s new show “The Wanted”, describing him as “responsible for killing hundreds of westerners”. The focus of NBC The Wanted tonight. NBC’s The Wanted on Mullah Krekar is getting average reviews.
The LA Times says tonight’s show as follows:
The Wanted: Counterterrorism experts hunt for Mullah Krekar, founder of an international terrorist organization said to be responsible for killing hundreds of Westerners in this new series.
The New York Times says The Wanted has a good story presented in a gimmick fashion.
“Beneath many scrims of reality-show gimmickry and stagy “Dateline”-style melodrama, the episode raises a perfectly legitimate “60 Minutes” kind of question: Why is it that Mullah Krekar, who is a wanted man in Iraq and was deemed a threat to national security by the Supreme Court of Norway, is still at liberty in Oslo, even though his refugee status was revoked and the Norwegian government says it wants him gone?
The Times says the show is short on journalism and strong on show business, theatrical appeal:
“Reporting on “The Wanted” keeps being pushed aside by the demands of show business….In the premiere episode there is no collusion with any government entity, just a few theatrical but uninformative interviews with Iraqi officials and Norwegian politicians.”
Bottom lines, says the New York Times, is the show lacks journalism:
“There is a good story buried somewhere in the Scandinavian gloom, but “The Wanted” leaves it almost untouched. Mr. Ciralsky complains that “Norway is letting justice get in the way of justice.” NBC News is letting reality-show aesthetics get in the way of journalism.”
I saw this documentary on norwegian TV2 tonigth and got really chocket and imbarused on behalf of the Americans. To be honest i would’t call this a documentary, i would call this a propaganda movie.
To start my comment i will say that the “No execution or toture will be made”-letters has been sent to the norwegian goverment since 2004. The norwegian goverment have worked intence on this case since 2004 also. I can also say that they haven’t made much progress since they started, but thats because of the norwegian laws.
I also thougth that it was really weak of the makers to only bring politics from the norwegian party “FrP”. FrP want every imigrant that stands of norwegian land out of the country. To describe i can tell you about a recent statement FrP suggested; They said that if they get in charge they will make a immigrant tentcamp in Africa where they will put the immigrants to be “Checked” before they enter norway, if they aren’t threatend in their homeconutry they will be put on a play back where they come from, and if they are threatned Norway will find them a country to live in.
They have also suggested that if a immigrant does anything illegal within their first 7 years they will be expelled from the country, with no chance to come back. So you can see my point, the makers took a shortcut to a political person with the meenings they wanted to hear.
To shortly sumer the movie it was like a bad episode of “24?. Every sentence looked like a staged cliché. Such a Amercian propaganda movie.
As i finish i will say; I want Mullah Krekar out of my country, but a trashy cliché propaganda movie is not the way to make it happen
M.Stene