AJC Praises French Broadcasting Authority's Ban of Hamas TV Station

AJC Praises French Broadcasting Authority's Ban of Hamas TV Station

NEW YORK, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC praised the French broadcasting authority for its decision to bar Al-Aqsa TV, the Hamas television channel, from the Eutelsat satellite system. This action will sharply limit the reach into Europe of the terrorist organization's broadcasts.

"By moving against Al-Aqsa TV - a propaganda arm of Hamas that has carried the terrorists' call to violence and hatred into homes across Europe - the French authorities defended French and European values," said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris. "This was an important step against incitement to terror."

The action by the French broadcasting agency Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel, or CSA, requires the removal of Al-Aqsa TV from the Eurobird 2, Eurobird 9 and Atlantic Bird 4 satellites, all of which reach parts of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. The satellites are under the authority of the Paris-based Eutelsat Communications.

AJC, working with the Coalition Against Terrorist Media, had urged CSA to remove Al-Aqsa from French satellite programming, on the grounds that the channel's broadcasts violate European standards on incitement of bigotry and violence. AJC France conducted high-level meetings on the matter with the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.

The Hamas channel broadcasts harangues by Hamas leaders, along with programs that promote suicide bombing and indoctrinate viewers with hatred for Israel, the West and moderate Palestinians. Regularly scheduled children's shows celebrate a culture of hatred and violence with cartoon characters and puppets glorifying jihadists and preparing young viewers to become suicide bombers.

Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV is modeled after Hezbollah's TV station, Al-Manar, which France and other countries have acted to block from satellite transmission. AJC and its coalition partners successfully advocated that the U.S. Treasury Department designate Al-Manar - an incendiary promoter of anti-Western, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda - as a terrorist entity, and worked with governments around the world to gain its removal from broadcast satellites.

Source: American Jewish Committee

CONTACT: Kenneth Bandler of the American Jewish Committee,
+1-212-891-6771, +1-2120891-1492 (fax), bandlerk@ajc.org, www.ajc.org

Web Site: http://www.ajc.org/

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