According to a Dec. 16 report posted on http://www.JTA.org, a global news service for the Jewish community, The United States has placed the television station al-Manar on its terrorism watch list, effectively banning its broadcast into the U.S. The station has links to the terrorist organization Hezbollah and its broadcasts were recently banned from entering France.

The report quoted an official from Intelsat, which sells capacity to GlobeCast, the company that carries al-Manar in the U.S. The Intelsat official said they would abide by any regulation or legislation that banned the station from being broadcast in the U.S.

The banning of the station raises certain free speech issues, but government officials also quoted in the article expressed confidence that its ban would withstand any challenges based on the content of the broadcasts.