Coalition Against Terrorist Media Removes Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television from Satellite Broadcasting into North and South America

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Coalition
Against Terrorist Media (CATM) today praised satellite
company Hispamar for removing the terrorist group
Hezbollah's al-Manar television station from broadcast
into North and South America. This marks the second
time that CATM has taken al-Manar off the airwaves in
the United States and throughout the Americas.

"Al-Manar runs graphic videos encouraging viewers,
even children, to become suicide bombers and calls for
acts of terrorism against civilians," said Mark
Dubowitz, COO of the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies, which organized CATM. "Al-Manar is an
operational weapon in the hands of one of the world's
most dangerous terrorist organizations."

"We applaud Hispamar for quickly ending al-Manar
broadcasts over its Amazonas satellite after we
alerted them to its incitement to violence and support
for terrorism," Dubowitz continued. "By removing
al-Manar, Hispamar is ending a very real threat.
Hezbollah is known to have terror cells in more than
14 major American cities. It conducts illegal
operations, including drug smuggling, throughout the
Americas. And it demonstrated its ability and
willingness to strike on this side of the Atlantic
when its terrorists killed more than 100 innocent
civilians in two bombings in Argentina."

With Hispamar's decision, CATM and its allies have now
been instrumental in removing al-Manar from eight
satellites around the world, including two other
satellites broadcasting into the United States and
Latin America.

In December 2004, at CATM's urging, the U.S. State
Department designated al-Manar as a terrorist
organization. The same day, the Intelsat satellite
company dropped al-Manar from broadcast in the United
States and Canada.

On June 23, 2005, following intensive consultations
with CATM and its allies, the government of Spain
issued a press release denouncing al-Manar's terrorist
messages and removed al-Manar from broadcast over
Hispasat, which reached all of Latin America.

Hispamar is a Brazilian company and branch of
Hispasat. Its Amazonas satellite had broadcast
al-Manar until being alerted by CATM about the
station's support for terrorism.

Al-Manar is still broadcast to the Middle East, Europe
and North Africa by Nilesat, whose major shareholder
is the government of Egypt, and Arabsat, which is
owned in part by the government of Saudi Arabia.
Al-Manar's broadcasts include commercials glorifying
suicide bombers and encouraging others to join their
ranks; viciously anti-American and anti-Semitic
material, including the infamous and false "blood
libel" depicting Jews killing a child to make Passover
Matzah; and music videos calling for suicide bombers
to attack coalition soldiers in Iraq.

CATM is a project of the non-partisan Foundation for
the Defense of Democracies
(http://www.defenddemocracy.org), a policy institute
that focuses on defeating terrorism and promoting
democracy.

For more information on al-Manar and CATM's efforts to
remove it from worldwide broadcast, please visit
http://www.stopterroristmedia.org.

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