The documentary "Jihad Rehab," despite its questionable title, has the sort of premise that's usually innocuous to indie film buffs. The film follows three men, each of whom were detained for 15 years at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, after their transfer to a "rehabilitation" facility in Saudi Arabia for former terrorism suspects. It's a humanizing journey through a complex emotional process of self-reckoning and accountability, and a look at the devastating fallout of flawed U.S. and Saudi policy as the men are reconditioned from radicalization and warfare to polite society.
So I was confused to learn recently of the controversy around the film's inclusion in this year's Sundance Film Festival, which has since provoked an official apology from the organization. All at the behest not of Islamophobes but of Muslims.
I'm Muslim, and I like "Jihad Rehab." (Cue the pile-on.) But more importantly, I wanted to understand how Muslim filmmakers' objections to the still-undistributed doc, organized into a social media campaign, spiraled into the latest firestorm over authorship and representation. And how it left longtime supporters of free expression like the Sundance Institute suddenly on the side of censorship.
