January 16, 2008
BANGKOK - Thai telecoms company Shin Satellite said Wednesday it has terminated broadcasts of a Lebanese television station backed by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Shin Satellite, founded by Thailand's ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, said it had conducted a transmission test for the Al-Manar satellite channel earlier in January, but had since severed links with the station, according to AFP.
The Australian newspaper reported on its website that Al-Manar TV broadcast in Australia, Africa, Europe and Asia via the THAICOM satellite.
The station was banned on a satellite carrier in Europe in 2004, with Washington and Brussels branding Hezbollah a terrorist organisation. Al-Manar has also been banned from broadcasting in the United States.
Shin Satellite was founded in 1991 by Thaksin, but he sold his Shin Corp company to Singapore's state-linked Temasek Holdings in 2006, the same year he was ousted in a military coup.
