They made a “mistake,” you see, in running that blood libel show. It won’t happen again, you see. And if you happen to be in the market for a suspension bridge, call Mohammed Haidar. From AFP, with thanks to Jeff Lastname:
PARIS, Nov 25 (AFP) – The head of a controversial television station linked to the Lebanese Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group said it would respect French law against discrimination after being allowed by France’s broadcasting regulator to transmit programmes within the European Union.
“We are ready to respect French law and will submit to it,” Mohammed Haidar told Thursday’s edition of the conservative Paris daily Le Figaro. “We have agreed to be bound by the agreement required of us” by the French Audiovisual Council (CSA).
The council gave the go-ahead on Friday despite appeals by Jewish groups not to grant a licence to the channel to transmit programmes in France after it had put out material criticised for perceived anti-Semitic content.
Following renewed protests, including from the opposition Socialist Party, the CSA said the agreement imposed on Al-Manar was of unprecedented toughness, obliging the channel “not to incite hatred, violence or discrimination based on race, sex, religion or nationality.”
Haidar said the aim of the channel was to support the Palestinian cause, and it had always distinguished between Israel’s policies as a state and the Jewish religion. Any changes to its programming to comply with the agreement would be minor.
He said that its broadcasting last year of a series which included particularly vicious anti-Semitic themes, such as the Middle Ages blood libel myth of alleged Jewish ritual killing of children, had been a “mistake”.