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Aladdin Project condemns Al-
Manar TV’s intimidation campaign against distributionof Anne Frank’s Diary in Lebanon
Press release
/ for immediate release
Contact
: 01 43 07 25 76
Date
: 3 November 2009Al-
Manar, the television station of Lebanon‟s Hezbollah,
has lashed out at the distribution of
Anne Frank‟s Diary in Lebanon and called on the Lebanese authorities to prosecute thoseresponsible for “the distribution and import of the book.” The channel said c
opies of the book
have been distributed “illegally” in several schools in Beirut.
“The book focuses on the persecution of Jews during the war, but even more dangerous is the
theatrical and dramatic method employed to narrate the diaries in an emotional way
,” thechannel‟s commentator said on October 29. The comments have also been posted on Al
-
Manar‟s Arabic
-language Web site.
Naeem Qal‟ani, a lawyer who chairs the Hezbollah
-
backed “Committee for the Boycott of Zionist Goods” in Lebanon, told Al
-
Manar: “Thi
s act is definitely punishable under the penal
code and the dealers and importers of the book will certainly be prosecuted. It‟s a flagrant
violation of the law and is a move towards normalization [with Israel]. The general
prosecutor‟s office must take action immediately for this is a criminal act.”
In an interview with Al-Manar on this subject, Hussein Al-Haj Hassan, a member of
Lebanon‟s parliament from Hezbollah, said: “No one teaches a book in Lebanese schools
without knowing its content. These prestigious and respectable schools, instead of teaching
what they call the „tragedy‟ of this young girl, should be teaching the tragedy of thePalestinian people and the Lebanese people and the history of Lebanon‟s resistance and the
suffering of the people of s
outhern [Lebanon] under Zionist occupation.”
Al-Manar said the Ministry of Education did not respond to its enquiries, while internalsecurity chief Major General Wafik Jazini agreed to launch an investigation. The reportwarned that the educational system
in Lebanon was becoming a target of a “Zionist culturalonslaught.”
The Aladdin Project, which has translated Anne Frank‟s Diary as well as other classic books
on the Holocaust for the first time into Arabic and Persian, condemns this campaign of vilifica
tion and intimidation by Hezbollah‟s TV.
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