May 17, 2011 14:09 GMT  ·  By
Michael Jackson would often say that Bashir destroyed his life with his misleading documentary
   Michael Jackson would often say that Bashir destroyed his life with his misleading documentary

The documentary BBC journalist Martin Bashir made in 2002, “Living with Michael Jackson,” and that eventually led to his prosecution in 2005 on 10 different counts, is still being aired on German network N24. Fans are again trying to block it from getting airtime.

This is the second attempt from Michael Jackson fans to stop the slanderous documentary from being shown, and to have the unedited and uncut version of it run instead.

As we also noted over the weekend in our editorial “Michael Jackson the Victim: The Untold Truth,” Michael trusted that Bashir would allow him to have his story out there, without tampering with it and without the sensationalism that usually came with every news story about himself.

While Bashir claimed that he would not present Jackson in a skewed light, he did just that, by having footage shot in the singer’s house cut and heavily edited to portray him as a monster and a child molester.

The documentary was at the basis of the 2005 trial (in which Michael was found not guilty on all charges), even though Bashir’s cutter admitted in court that the intention was to portray Michael as a molester from the start.

Fans are now fighting to keep the documentary off the German network, by arguing that N24 should air instead “The Michael Jackson Interview: The Footage You Were Never Meant to See,” the documentary that was made in response to Bashir’s own, shot by people on Michael’s staff.

“We cannot allow any longer, that this film, in which Martin Bashir defames Michael Jackson and makes him look like a fool, is still being shown on TV,” fans say of the petition now available online.

“We stand up for an accurate description of Michael Jackson in and by the media and we fight to achieve this with all available means,” the petition to N24 reads.

“Finally the artist and, above all, the person Michael Jackson shall be honored and respected for his artistic and humanitarian accomplishments and his memory shall be dignified,” the document further says.

“Always important for us are values like veraciousness, maintenance of human dignity and the common right to be informed in a widespread and objective way by simultaneously paying regard to the freedom of the press,” fans write.

Below is a video created to make the existence of the petition known to fans all over the world. More information on it here. For how Bashir and the media plotted to paint a negative picture of the singer, go here.