The Telegraph reports that Algeria has banned as “immoral” a reality television show that has become so popular in the Arab world that restaurants in the region are empty during its broadcasts.

Star Academy, a version of Fame Academy, is keeping the Middle East on the edge of its seat with the rare sight of male and female contestants competing for the prize of money, fame and a record deal.

The show has weathered protests that it is “un-Islamic” and a toxic import from the West but this week Algerian national television stopped showing the programme after protests by the main Islamist party.

Aboudjerra Soltani, the leader of the Movement for a Society of Peace, said the show was a “provocation against society and attacked its moral values”. It can still be watched on satellite television.

The programme was launched by the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation and is filmed in Lebanon, but is transmitted across the Arab world. Although wildly popular, the Star Acadamy has attracted more than a small amount of criticism for being “un-Islamic” or because reality TV is simply too western.

The Dean of the School of Islamic Law and Shari’a at Kuwait University passed a fatwa condemning the show; the Kuwaiti parliament has discussed legislation to “protect public morality” from Star Academy, and articles in the Saudi press have called the building where the contestants live “a whorehouse”.

The programme has outlasted Arabic Big Brother, which was launched in Bahrain in 2004 and closed down after oly a week when a kiss between two contestants provoked mass demonstrations in the Bahraini capital, Manama.

(via The Melon Farmers)

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