Senators Cripple Terrorist Broadcasts

Senators Cripple Terrorist Broadcasts

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, led by U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Gordon Smith, has succeeded in getting a Middle East television operation designated as a global terrorist entity.

The move was aimed at further crippling the Hezbollah-owned TV station's ability to broadcast terrorist propaganda. It will result in the U.S. freezing any assets of al Manar's operations; and, it should hasten a decline in its multinational advertising.

"Al Manar broadcasts poisonous propaganda for Hezbollah, a Lebanese-based and Iranian-backed terrorist group," Nelson said today. "That makes the station just as culpable as the terrorists themselves."

Nelson, a Florida Democrat, and Smith, an Oregon Republican, succeeded last week in getting the U.S. Treasury Department to designate al Manar's satellite television operation as a Global Terrorist Organization. That came after the two lawmakers passed a measure in the Senate calling for the government to treat al Manar as a terrorist group.

Today, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism, lauded Nelson, Smith and others for an effort that the institute's president, Clifford May, said "gives the government the tools it needs to cripple al Manar's internationally broadcast incitements to terrorism."

http://billnelson.senate.gov/news/details.cfm?id=253325&