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Desmond Tutu calls for axing of TV show

New York - Nine Nobel Peace Prize winners are speaking out against a new NBC competition series they say treats military manoeuvres like athletic events.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the other Nobel laureates protested in an open letter that the show, Stars and Stripes, glorifies war and armed violence.

The series, premiering on NBC on Monday, pairs celebrities with US military personnel for simulated military challenges. Celebrity participants include boxing champion Laila Ali, Superman actor Dean Cain, Olympic gold medalist Picabo Street and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's husband, Todd Palin.

The programme is hosted by retired Army General Wesley Clark.

"I'm doing this series for one reason," says Clark at the top of the show - "to introduce you, the American people, to the individuals that sacrifice so much for all of us."

'Trying to sanitise war'

The series is billed on its website as a "fast-paced competition" whose contestants "will gather at a remote training facility where they will be challenged to execute complicated missions inspired by real military exercises".

Stars Earn Stripes says it "pays homage to the men and women who serve in the US armed forces and our first-responder services".

The letter, sent on Monday to Clark, NBC boss Robert Greenblatt, producer Mark Burnett and others connected with the show, argues "this programme pays homage to no one anywhere" and criticises it for "trying to somehow sanitise war by likening it to an athletic competition".

Protest

The letter calls for NBC to stop airing the series.

NBC defended the show saying, it isn't "a glorification of war, but a glorification of service".

Besides Tutu, signers of the letter include Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi, Jose Ramos-Horta, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Rigoberta Menchu Tum and Betty Williams.

The Nobel laureates also declared their support for a protest against the show scheduled to take place on Monday afternoon outside NBC's Rockefeller Centre headquarters in Manhattan.

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