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Jordan pulls controversial soap opera at last minute

After a week-long advertising blitz, Jordan abruptly canceled plans Saturday to broadcast a soap opera about Afghanistan after an Internet threat to "strike" everyone from actors to TV executives if the show portrayed the Taliban in a negative light.

The Dubai-based Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, however, went ahead with its scheduled programming and aired the soap opera's second episode Saturday night.

The series, al-Tareeq ila Kabul -- Arabic for "the Road to Kabul'' -- chronicles life under Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers, and was to be aired during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began Friday in most Muslim countries.

Jordanian television stations had promised the series would begin in the early days of Ramadan, but on Thursday -- the day the threat appeared -- officials said the broadcast might be postponed for a few days because of technical problems. On Saturday, they canceled plans to show it.

The broadcast was "suspended indefinitely upon a request from its producer, the Qatari television," Abdul-Halim Araibyat, director general of the state Jordan Radio and Television Corp, said.

He said Jordan's decision to suspend the show was due only to the Qatari request, and not to the threat. He didn't know why the producers asked for the suspension, and phones rang unanswered at Qatari television.

MBC, which began broadcasting the soap opera on Friday, aired the second episode Saturday night. No other Arabic television stations commented on the Qatari request.

The threat appeared Thursday on a Web site known as a clearinghouse for Muslim militant statements. Its authenticity could not be independently verified.

"We swear to the great God that if we see in the series anything other than the honorable reality of the Taliban ... we will assault all those who participated in this sullied malice," the statement read.

"We direct our strong warning to all who participated in producing this series, whether an actor, producer or cameraman," the statement added.

Talal Adnan al-Awamleh, owner of the Jordanian firm that produced the series, said it was filmed mainly in Jordan and most of the cast was Jordanian. But he said Jordan didn't take it off the air.

"Jordan is not responsible for suspending the broadcast. It's the Qataris who have issued a statement to all the stations that bought it, asking them to suspend broadcast on unspecified technical and information grounds," he said.
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