Pierre Daher: We fear that matters would end up in isolating Lebanon by cutting internet services

Chairman of Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI) and CEO Pierre Daher said that he had previously alerted the Lebanese officials during the meeting which took place at the parliament last November in the presence of Minister of Telecommunication Ramzi Jreij after the regional satellite operator Arabsat stopped broadcasting Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV and Al-Mayadeen channel, that the Arabsat’s move is just the beginning amid the regional crisis where “all weapons are being used, including the media.”

 

Daher’s comments were made on Wednesday during a phone call with the Panorama TV show that is aired on the al-Manar channel whereby he noted that he previously said that other satellites “might follow Arabsat’s path.”

 

Daher stressed that he had called for setting an emergency plan in this regard, adding that the current challenges are “immense.”

 

“We are not ready to face such challenges, especially amid the presidential vacuum, the presence of non-homogeneous government and a parliament that barely convenes,” Daher added.

 

He also expressed concerns that matters would end up someday in isolating Lebanon from the world by cutting the internet services.

“What is happening resembles war and each side is using everything to hurt the other side,” he concluded by saying.

An Egyptian regional satellite provider cut the broadcast of Hezbollah's TV station in Lebanon on Wednesday, the latest in escalating tensions between the Iranian-backed organization and Sunni Arab countries in the region.

Al-Manar, the official station of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, briefly went off air after its carrier, Egypt's NileSat, dropped the channel.

Technicians scrambled to reprogram satellite receivers after the station switched its broadcast to Russia's Express satellite provider in Lebanon.

Last year, Al-Manar had announced that Arabsat suddenly stopped broadcasting the channel without explanation and in violation of their contract.


LBCI/REUTERS