HEZBOLLAH’S TV station, twice banned in Australia for supporting terrorism, has been given permission to broadcast into this country after an investigation found it did not breach the anti-terrorism standard.
The Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) decision on the Lebanese-based al-Manar TV station, announced yesterday, outraged Jewish groups, which said they were less concerned with the station promoting terrorism than its ‘‘vicious anti-Semitism’’.
Hezbollah, a militant Lebanese Muslim party, is banned in the United States as a terrorist organisation, but only its armed wing is proscribed in Australia. Its TV programs endorse suicide bombers, call for Israel’s annihilation, and refer to Jews as the offspring of pigs and apes.
ACMA has twice stopped al-Manar — popular with the Arabic community, who receive it by satellite — from being broadcast into Australia. In 2004 it stopped a Sydney provider transmitting it as part of an Arabic package, and introduced the anti-terrorism standard in 2006. In January last year a Thai company stopped broadcasting al-Manar at ACMA’s request.
ACMA launched the latest investigation last August, after The Age alerted it that al-Manar was being broadcast from Indonesia by a company part-owned by the Indonesian Government. Read more.