The channel, Al Manar, voluntarily stopped beaming via Eutelsat's satellite after being notified of the order issued on Monday by France's highest administrative court, but complained its right to freedom of expression was being infringed.
Jewish lobby groups welcomed the French ruling, even though the channel continues to be broadcast to parts of Europe and to other regions around the world on six other satellites outside of French jurisdiction.
The media rights group Reporters Without Borders said that while Al Manar "has broadcast unacceptable anti-Semitic comment", shutting down access to it was not the right path to take.
"Ordering the pure and simple closure of a media outlet is never the best solution," it said.
Al Manar joined some 1,500 other channels being transmitted into Europe on Eutelsat's Hot Bird 4 satellite on November 19 after being granted a license by France's broadcast regulator, the Higher Audiovisual Council (CSA).
But the CSA applied to have the license revoked a week later, after Al Manar made a number of comments considered anti-Semitic, including one on November 23 in which a speaker accused Israel of disseminating AIDS in the Arab world.
Al Manar is seen as a mouthpiece of the Lebanese Shia Muslim group Hizbullah. The group is both a political party in Lebanon and a militia group that from to time launches cross-border attacks against Israel. The United States and some European countries view it as a terrorist organization.
French foreign minister Michel Barnier expressed support for the court ruling against the station, telling the France 2 network on Tuesday that "comments inciting hatred will not be tolerated".
Eutelsat's chief executive, Giulio Berretta, said that his company had contacted Arabsat, the Saudi-based operator that had put Al Manar on the Hot Bird 4 satellite in a package with eight other Arab stations, to inform it of the ban.
Arabsat responded by saying that Al Manar - after initially calling the French decision a "dangerous precedent" against media freedom that called into question Paris's relations with the Arab world - had volunteered to stop its broadcasts via Eutelsat to prevent the other stations from also being blocked.
In Beirut, Al Manar's news director, Hassan Fadlallah, said that the decision was made "to save problems for the other Arab channels on the same package".
He added that "we sent a message to Arabsat informing them of our decision to voluntarily halt broadcasts on the Hotbird 4 satellite of Eutelsat so as not to complicate things further" but vowed that Al Manar would "pursue the case through legal channels".
Al Manar's public relations director, Ibrahim Farhat, said that the station hoped to convince French authorities to overturn the ban by promising to modify programs to comply with French laws.
He said that station executives would be holding a meeting with CSA representatives in Paris on Friday to discuss the matter.
Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karame expressed his anger, however, by saying during a visit to Qatar that his country was considering a reciprocal ban on French media broadcasts.
"If the decision is implemented, we will apply the principle of reciprocity," he told journalists.
"Al Manar committed no mistake," he said, accusing Israel of exerting pressure on France.
BEIRUT - About 50 private cable operators in Beirut have stopped the distribution of French channel TV5 in solidarity with Al Manar, the mouthpiece of the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah banned by France.
"Our grouping held a meeting on Saturday and we decided to stop the distribution of TV5 in solidarity with Al Manar," Ihab Samir, co-owner of LTV cable in the Ras Nabeh central residential neighborhood said.
He said the grouping, made up of the "the distributors of cable services", took the decision "to halt TV5 in Beirut as a first step, as we are making contacts with other companies in other Lebanese regions".
"Cable distributors in other regions are to have joined the movement by the weekend," he said.
In Ashrafiyeh, a Christian-dominant neighborhood east of the capital, cable operators said that they would not join the action because their clients were largely francophone.
Cable distributors in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a main Hizbullah stronghold, and in main cities in the south of the country said that they were open to join the halt, but had not been informed of the action yet.
Lebanon warned on Saturday that it was considering reprisal measures against French and US media. The French public television TV5 continues to be rebroadcast on Lebanese state media outlets.
© 2004 Agence France-Presse
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