Friday, August 25, 2006
Speaking of accessing Al Manar, a New York man of Pakastani decent has been charged with providing access to the propaganda arm of Hizballah through his local cable company: Man charged with providing NYC broadcasts from Hezbollah TV
Al Manar, launched in 1991, features news programming that promotes Hezbollah's positions and shows statements from the terror group and speeches from its leader.
Iqbal was held on $250,000 bail, though he was expected to be freed as early as Friday once he posts his home as collateral, his lawyer Mustapha Ndanusa said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen A. Miller had asked that Iqbal be held without bail, suggesting more charges were imminent.
"The charge lurking in the background is material support for terrorism," Miller told Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein...
Readers may recall that here in Massachusetts, there was something of a controversy over the broadcast of a program called "Mosaic" on the Newton local access channel. Mosaic takes clips from various Middle Eastern news broadcasts, translates them and puts them up for viewing...including Al Manar.
Here are some background stories on that from two years back: Middle East news reports are not welcomed by all, Reclaiming NewTV for the City of Newton, and Assessment of "Mosaic: World News from the Middle East" from World Link TV.
Mosaic is still broadcast in Newton, though I don't know if they continue to include Al Manar.
Update: I'm informed that it did at first include Al Manar until the Feds made them stop.
