Washington-DC based civil rights and advocacy group for Muslims, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a statement urging digital storefronts to refuse hosting and distribution of “Six Days in Fallujah”. Calling it a controversial first-person shooter game that aims to recreate the events of the Second Battle of Fallujah from late 2004.
“We call on Microsoft, Sony, and Valve to ban their platforms from hosting Six Days in Fallujah, an Arab murder simulator that will only normalize violence against Muslims in America and around the world,” CAIR Research and Advocacy Coordinator Huzaifa Shahbaz said in a statement.
“The gaming industry must stop dehumanizing Muslims. Video games like Six Days in Fallujah only serve to glorify violence that took the lives of hundreds of Iraqi civilians, justify the Iraq war, and reinforce anti-Muslim sentiment at a time when anti-Muslim bigotry continues to threaten human life.”
For those unaware, Six Days in Fallujah is an upcoming tactical FPS based on the actual stories and real-world events from the Second Battle of Fallujah, one of the bloodiest battles led by U.S Marines during the Iraq War. The game was first announced in 2009, and since then controversies have surrounded it. The previous developer, Atomic Games, had received backlash from various communities and groups, including the Stop the War coalition. The game was thought to be canceled since the led publisher Konami had stepped back from the project and Atomic games went bankrupt in 2011. But now the project has restarted under a new developer, Highwire Games, and will be published by Victura, a new company formed by ex-Atomic Games president Peter Tamte.
The game has been heavily criticized for being a “political commentary” and an attempt at whitewashing the history of the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War that caused the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi civilians. While Victura’s Peter Tamte insists that the game is not a “political commentary”, the landing page of the game’s website and Twitter suggests the game’s theme is “inseparable from politics” and “based of real-world events”.
Victura is yet to announce a release date for the game. However, with the controversies surrounding the game, it might get canned again.
