Al-Manar

Al-Manar ( ar, المنار, ''al-Manār'', lit='' The Lighthouse'') is a Lebanese satellite television station owned and operated by the political party Hezbollah,Germany bans Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV Channel
21 November 2008, Ya Libnan broadcasting from Beirut, Lebanon. The channel was launched on 4 June 1991 and it is a member of the Arab States Broadcasting Union.

Al-Manar was designated as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity", and banned by the United States on 17 December 2004.

On 22 June 2021, the official Al-Manar website domain as well as dozens of other Arab news network domains related to Iran, Lebanon and Syria were shut down by the U.S. government for spreading disinformation and in cooperation with the U.S. government, Al-Manar is banned from multiple U.S based media platforms which include YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit etc.

It has also been banned by France Spain,Commission of the European Communitie
Commission document SEC (2006) 160
Retrieved 31 July 2006 and Germany, and has run into some service and license problems outside Lebanon, making it unavailable in the Netherlands,Radio Netherlands Worldwide Blo
Iranian commentator reacts to Dutch ban on two satellite TV stations
Retrieved 30 July 2006Radio Netherlands Worldwide Blo
Two Islamic TV stations banned in the Netherlands
Retrieved 30 July 2006 Canada, and Australia,ABA News Release NR 135/2004 22 October 200
ABA investigation into Al Manar programming on TARBS
Retrieved 15 August 2006 while it has not officially been banned in any of these regions.

History

Al-Manar first began terrestrial broadcasting from Beirut, Lebanon on 4 June 1991. In 2000 the station also began broadcasting via satellite. The station was located in the predominantly Shi'a neighborhood of Haret Hreik in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where the Hezbollah is also headquartered. Originally, the station employed only a few men that had studied media in London during the mid-1980s. But almost a year later, Al-Manar was employing over 150 people.

Initially, Al Manar would broadcast only five hours per day. Shortly before the 1992 election, it began broadcasting regular news bulletins in order to help Hezbollah attain more votes and spread its message to more people. In 1993, the station expanded its broadcasting to seven hours a day and extended its signal to the southern part of the Bekaa Valley. Ahead of the 1996 Lebanese parliamentary elections, additional antennas were erected in Northern Lebanon and throughout the Mount Lebanon range, so that the station could be viewed not only in Lebanon, but also in western Syria and northern Israel. Broadcasting was extended to 20 hours in 1998 but reduced to 18 hours in 2000.

In 1996, the Lebanese government granted broadcasting licenses to only five television stations, not including Al-Manar. Approximately 50 stations were forced to close at the time. Several stations appealed the government's decision, but only four of them were finally granted licenses, one of which was Al-Manar. On 18 September, the Lebanese Cabinet decided to grant Al-Manar a license after having been requested to do so by then Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad. Al-Manar received the license in July 1997.

According to the US Department of Treasury, Al Manar is the media arm of the Hezbollah. The station manager Muhammad Afif Ahmad, said that Al Manar belongs to Hezbollah culturally and politically. By 2004, Al Manar was estimated to hold 10-15 million viewers daily worldwide.

Satellite broadcasting

During the 1990s, the popularity of satellite broadcasting greatly increased in the Arab world and in Lebanon. The first Lebanese station to use this technology was Future Television, launching Future International SAT in 1994, while LBCI and the Lebanese government followed by launching LBCSAT and Tele Liban Satellite respectively. In order to compete with these emerging stations, and in order to find an international audience, Al-Manar announced its intention to launch a satellite channel on 9 March 2000. Muhammad Ra'd, a Hezbollah member of parliament and al-Manar's largest shareholder, submitted the request to the minister of transmission, which was approved in April 2000. Although the launch of the satellite station was originally planned for July, the date was moved up in order to coincide with the end of the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon on 25 May. This success led other television stations to follow in launching satellite stations, including Murr TV in November 2000, but it was shut down for "violating an election law prohibiting propaganda" – a fate which al-Manar did not meet, although its programming was also considered propaganda by many analysts . ArabSat, a leading communications satellite operator in the Middle East, headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was at first wary about collaborating with al-Manar, because of the station's Shi'a agenda – the two companies agreed, however, that the programming would be adapted to the pan-Arab audience, leading to a slight difference between the local broadcast and the one via satellite. At first, only three hours of satellite programming were broadcast per day, but by December 2000, the station was broadcasting around the clock.

Al-Manar was soon carried by many satellite providers. However, starting with the removal of the station from TARBS World TV in Australia in 2003, many satellite television providers stopped featuring it. Until then the station was featured by the following providers at one time or another:

*Intelsat, broadcasting to North America
*New Skies Satellites NSS-803, Africa and parts of Europe
*ArabSat, Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Europe
* Hispasat, South America
*AsiaSat, Asia
*Nilesat
*Eutelsat, Europe, North Africa, and Middle East
*SES Astra, Europe

According to the BBC
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