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A scene from "Al-Shatat" in which Jews plot to take over the world. Al-Manar's logo appears in the upper-right.
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| By Associated Press November 20, 2004 |
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France's audiovisual watchdog agency said Friday it has reached an accord with a Lebanese TV channel linked to anti-Israel group Hezbollah that allows it to stay on the airwaves in France. A top Jewish group expressed anger and a sense of betrayal by the government.
The deal came after media regulator CSA had threatened to ban broadcasts by Lebanon's Al-Manar through a Paris satellite operator. Jewish groups complained the network had aired an anti-Semitic series.
The regulator on Tuesday gave Al-Manar a license it requested to continue broadcasts through satellite operator Eutelsat into France and many other parts of Europe, the CSA said on its Web site Friday.
The CSA action was sparked in December, when an umbrella group of French Jewish organizations complained that Al-Manar had aired an anti-Semitic series in France.
The 29-part series, "Al-Shatat," was produced in Syria and broadcast throughout the Middle East by Hezbollah. Based on "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," it depicts among other scenes the killing of a Christian child on the orders of a rabbi so the blood can be baked into matzos for Passover.
CSA director Dominique Baudis, in a letter that accompanied the license, warned that some of the programs aired by the network in the past would violate the license's terms.
Some programming by the channel "depicts violence toward civilian populations in a favorable light," could incite hatred among religious or national groups and "bring trouble to the public order," he said.
"Your signature of this license implies therefore that you will formally renounce broadcast of programs of this nature on the satellite that comes under French law," he said.
Al-Manar, which signed the license Friday, issued a statement saying "it has no problem with French laws and is ready to abide by the legal requirements to broadcast on French airwaves."
The statement, issued from Lebanon, accused Israel of unsuccessfully trying to harm its image and provoke the French and other European governments into silencing its voice.
The head of France's umbrella organization of Jewish groups expressed outrage.
"This is very serious for France's Jewish community ... these terrorists are used to the worst kind of lies," said Roger Cukierman, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France. "These are people that we should not be dealing with."
"I feel the attitude of the French government in this affair is distressing," he added. "We are scandalized by the total redirection in the position of the CSA."
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