From The Age, August 21, 2008, by Barney Zwartz, with Sarah Smiles and AFP:
AUTHORITIES are trying to stop an anti-Semitic satellite TV station broadcasting into Australia from Indonesia — which has already rejected US efforts to take the channel off the air.
It is the third time Australia has acted against al-Manar, a channel owned by Hezbollah, the militant Shiite Muslim Lebanese political party. The United States lists it as a banned terrorist organisation. Australia lists only its armed wing, the External Security Organisation.
Al-Manar promotes and raises money for terrorism, particularly against Israel. It has just started broadcasting again into Asia and the Pacific from Indonesia, using a company part-owned by the Indonesian Government, and is available to people with satellite dishes.The station is viciously anti-Semitic — perpetuating the medieval "blood libel" that Jews use the blood of Christian children in their Passover meals — as well as anti-Israel and anti-US.
....Australian Arabic Council chairman Roland Jabbour said it was hypocritical for a government that believed in freedom of speech to ban al-Manar. He said the channel was very popular and widely watched by Arabic speakers in Australia."Hezbollah's political wing represents many people in the Lebanese Parliament, and there's nothing military about the television station," he said. He added that "nearly every television channel from the Middle East" can be viewed in Australia, and that others were more likely to advocate violence.
Australia-Israel Review editor Tzvi Fleischer said al-Manar's reappearance was of deep concern."It's not only a fund-raising and recruiting tool for a terrorist organisation but is very anti-Semitic, with some very nasty stuff. We hope the authorities look hard at whether they can stop it."
Alerted by The Age this week to al-Manar's presence, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) yesterday confirmed it had begun inquiries.
Al-Manar is banned in the US. A US embassy spokesman in Jakarta last week confirmed it had made representations to Indonesia about the station."The US Government has expressed, and will continue to express, its concerns about Hezbollah and al-Manar television worldwide, and remains firmly opposed to their exploitation of the media to promote terrorist acts," he said.
...The Indonesian Government owns 14% of the satellite company and has the right to veto strategic decisions, according to a media report.
In 2004 ACMA stopped a Sydney-based provider transmitting al-Manar as part of a package of Arab stations. In January this year ACMA alerted a Thai company that was broadcasting al-Manar into Australia. The company dropped the station.
Yesterday ACMA spokesman Donald Robertson said the authority imposed program standards on terror-related content after investigating al-Manar in 2004.
Mr Robertson could not say exactly what ACMA proposed to do about the Indosat broadcasts. He said the authority's legal power to enforce anti-terrorism standards was not confined to Australia. "ACMA may still issue a notice to an overseas service provider directing it to comply with the act," he said.
A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the minister was aware of ACMA's inquiry and he would work with the authority as the matter developed.
According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, al-Manar, launched in 1991, transmits 24 hours a day worldwide and is bankrolled by the Iranian Government. The station regularly broadcasts speeches by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and fatwas (Muslim legal rulings) endorsing suicide bombing as legitimate....
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