Baku, Azerbaijan, May 12
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Extremist Shiite satellite channels are not permitted to operate in Iran.
Extremist satellite television networks' activity is illegal in Iran and may be prosecuted, Iran's Fars news agency reported on May 12 citing the country's foreign media department of the culture ministry.
Several of these television channels which have been criticized for their anti-Sunni broadcasts have offices in Iran and are supported by some senior clerics in the country's holy city of Qom, according to the report.
Last week the governor of the Qom province, Mohammad Sadeq Salehimanesh responded to complaints by Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Lebanon's Hezbollah who had called for greater controls over religious satellite television networks whose programs came from clerics and others in the Iranian city of Qom.
"Our dear brother Hassan Nasrallah sent a delegation last week to me and asked that some of the satellite stations that were fed from Qom should be brought under control," Salehimanesh said. Nasrollah was referring to anti-Sunni programs produced in Qom but which are broadcast on satellite television stations that are registered outside Iran.
Edited by C.N.