New Yorker Busted For Broadcasting Hizbullah TV

U.S. authorities have arrested a New York man for broadcasting Hizbollah television station al-Manar, which has been designated a terrorist entity by the U.S. Treasury Department, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Javed Iqbal, 42, was arrested on Wednesday because his Brooklyn-based company HDTV Ltd. was providing New York-area customers with the Hizbollah-operated channel, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

It did not say how long Iqbal's company had been providing satellite broadcasts of al-Manar, which the U.S. Treasury Department in March had designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity, making it a crime to conduct business with al-Manar.

Well, considering how many Islamists have made the New York metro area their home, it isn't surprising that someone tried to provide Hizbullah TV to Islamists in the US. Yet, this problem isn't confined to television broadcasts, but to websites and blogs that provide current information to jihadis around the world.

UPDATE:
The State Island Advance notes that Iqbal lived on Staten Island.

The charges were brought after federal agents executed search warrants at two storefronts in Brooklyn and at a Staten Island residence where several satellite dishes helped Iqbal distribute the broadcasts through a Brooklyn company called HDTV Limited, Garcia said.

UPDATE:
Black Dog Brigade has more on the situation, including technical information on Iqbal's satellite operation.

The SI Advance has still more:

Iqbal was held on $250,000 bail, though he was expected to be freed as early as Friday once he posts his home as collateral, his lawyer Mustapha Ndanusa said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen A. Miller had asked that Iqbal be held without bail, suggesting more charges were imminent.

"The charge lurking in the background is material support for terrorism," Miller told Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein.

He said Iqbal was evasive as he talked to investigators Wednesday and was a risk to flee because he has family in Pakistan.

The judge, though, said the government failed to prove he was a flight risk. He said he would require electronic monitoring once Iqbal is freed.

The charges against Iqbal were brought after FBI agents executed search warrants at two storefronts in Brooklyn where he worked and at his Staten Island residence, where multiple satellite dishes helped him distribute the broadcasts through a Brooklyn company called HDTV Limited, Garcia said.

Farhan Memon, who was assisting Ndanusa on the case, scoffed at the government's claims. He suggested it would be as if the governments of Iran or China banned major U.S. news stations, saying they were terrorist outlets. He said Americans would "be hopping up and down crying, 'Freedom of speech! Freedom of the press!'"

Memon said half of Iqbal's business was feeding programming from evangelical churches in Texas to his satellites for wider distribution.

Well, the problem is that al Manar supports a terrorist group, Hizbullah, which has repeatedly attacked US citizens and interests around the world, and exploits our very freedom of speech to spread its message of jihad and supplantation of Western Civilization by an Islamic one.

UPDATE:
Well, Solomonia made my point above for me. Solomonia tracked down a link that the Boston Muslim-American Society was busy telling their minions of the al Manar webcasts of HizbullahTV via streaming video. One didn't have to go through all the trouble of getting HizbullahTV on satellite tv when you could just as easily troll the usual sources for links to the webcasts and video links to jihadis in action. (HT: Miss Kelly via LGF)