FOX Kept From Taping Play

A Harvard official thwarted a FOX News camera crew’s attempt Saturday evening to tape a student show reenacting the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. Army reservists at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Jesse B. Watters, a producer for FOX News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” said that a two-member crew from the network arrived at Harvard’s Loeb Experimental Theater at 7 p.m. Saturday, half an hour before the final performance of the student show’s three-day run was set to begin.

But Robert Mitchell, director of communications for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), said he barred the crew from entering the theater, citing a longstanding policy that prohibits members of the media from filming inside FAS buildings.

“Abu Ghraib,” written and directed by Adams House social studies concentrator Currun Singh ’07, depicts the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the U.S.-controlled jail west of Baghdad by mixing modern dance acts with testimony from the real-life trial of an Army specialist charged with maltreatment of detainees.

Watters said that he had received permission to film the show from the play’s producer, Xin Wei Ngiam ’07. But Ngiam said yesterday that “there was no formal permission ever given.”

Mitchell said that “exceptions can be made” to the ban on media inside FAS venues when student performers consent to having their shows recorded.

Watters said that he would try to obtain a tape of the show from cast members who filmed the performance themselves.

“If we could get that footage, it’s up to [host Bill] O’Reilly if he wants to do that segment or not,” Watters said.

O’Reilly, who received a one-year master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government in 1996, reaches more than two million viewers with his show a night. Watters said he would not discuss the angle that the network’s coverage might take on “Abu Ghraib.”

Watters contacted Harvard Republican Club President Matthew P. Downer ’07 on Friday and asked Downer if he would offer on-air commentary on the performance.

“I agreed to go on the air but wasn’t sure what I would actually say—pending seeing the play,” Downer said.

Downer, who attended the show on Saturday night, described the play as “pretty offensive.”

“Everyone agrees that what happened at Abu Ghraib was horrible and tragic,” Downer said. “But...by portraying American foreign policy as targeted specifically against Islam, the play disparaged our men and women in uniform in an extreme and dishonest way. Certainly making these statements and arguments are within their rights, but I think it represents a new low in responsible dialogue on the issue.”

Singh and Ngiam both said in interviews last week that their show strived to be “non-partisan.” Singh said he wrote the play to generate discussion of human rights issues on campus.

“The show is meant to provoke,” Singh said last week. “And to be provocative is to be controversial.”

Singh could not be reached for comment yesterday.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.