Al-Manar Website Expelled from “Apple” and "Google"

Local Editor
 Bassem Al-Hakim, Al-Akhbar
It is a real battle of existence fought by «Al-Manar» on the Web and modern networks of communication, alongside attempts to impose a siege on it.

It is true that the television station is facing this war for years, so that the Facebook administration deleted its accounts repeatedly, but attempts to siege it is expanding more and more.

The latest attempt was on Tuesday, when Google and Apple removed the Al-Manar application. «Al-Manar» website has provided application that gives the user the access to know latest news posted the possibility of follow it up directly on the «Google Play».

Al-Manar website later provided the application on «Apple» for two days only, before being stopped Tuesday night, after about 3500 users uploaded it within 48 hours.

The campaign came after a letter of the American pro-Israel «Anti-Defamation League» delivered to «Apple» company on July 25.

“Al-Manar represents the “media arm” of Hezbollah and the source of the anti-Israel and anti-U.S. propaganda that emits messages of hatred and violence,” said the association director that Abraham Foxman.

Top managers at “Resistance and Liberation Channel” were not surprised by the news.

An official source at Al-Manar told Al-Akhbar local daily that the step falls ”in the framework of the continuing pressure against us in more than one occasion, starting from bombing the main building during the Zionist aggression in 2006

“Those who claim democracy in the West cannot bear a website of this level, but that does not mean we are going to surrender,” the official added, given that the U.S. State Department had banned the broadcast of Al-Manar Channel in the United States since 2004, and followed later by France and Denmark.

The «Anti-Defamation League» is a U.S.-based Jewish organization based, and monitors what the mass media publishes about Israel, especially in the Arab and Islamic countries, and issues periodic bulletins in this regard presented to the American politicians and congressmen.
Because Hezbollah media represents the biggest danger for the league, it decided to fight it through disrupting its electronic media.

Wael Karaki, one of Al-Manar website supervisors, explained that “the media war has already started since we signed up to the Facebook site about five years ago. Five accounts were deactivated during this period.”

It is noteworthy that Facebook administration sent a message “to inform us about the deactivation of our account under the pretext of promoting for misappropriate content... This of course means racism and terrorism which is promoted by the U.S. and Israel against Hezbollah.

The war against the channel has taken another form on Twitter. Months ago, a false account was created carrying the name and logo of Al-Manar, which started to tweet news regarding the events in Syria, including the withdrawal of the Syrian army claiming to be issued by Al-Manar.
The false account also posted rumors that Hezbollah declared mourning after the martyrdom of the Syrian officers in Damascus blast. The news was soon spread across the web, which summoned the party to deny it.

However, Al-Manar official website sent warning messages to its readers to alert them not to fall into the trap.

Confrontation is continuous and «Al-Manar» is used to these wars. The station has been put on the list of terrorist organizations in December 2004, and faced imposed restrictions on its broadcast via satellites in Europe.

Simultaneously, the channel’s website is not free of penetration attempts, but they assume failure always.
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