The director of an U.S. government-funded all-Arabic television network is sitting in the hot seat for broadcasting programs he says are designed to compete with Arabic TV stations in the Middle East . Nine American Congressmen from the Republican and Democratic parties have demanded that American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice fire the director of the Arabic language Alhurra television network Larry Register. The station, administered under the same Board of Governors that oversees the international Voice of America programming, was slammed by U.S. lawmakers for the content of its programs over the past months. Alhurra featured a live interview with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister and Hamas Chairman Ismail Haniyeh, a speech by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, a live interview with an al-Qaeda terrorist and various Holocaust denial programs. "It makes no sense to have a State Department office dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, while the Department funds and supports Mr. [Larry] Register," vice president of the network, the legislators wrote. Register, who does not speak Arabic, defended the broadcast by saying that the network has to compete with other Arab language networks while still trying to spread a message of democracy. Alhurra , a channel broadcast entirely in Arabic, launched its first program on satellite airwaves to viewers in the Middle East and North Africa on February 14, 2004. Alhurra , which means “The Free One” in Arabic, was meant to counter the frequent anti-American programs broadcast by Arabic-language media in the region, such as the Aljazeera network. The U.S. government spent some $62 million to create the station, which is located in Springfield , Virginia – a suburb of Washington D.C. Alhurra broadcasts today by satellite to all 22 countries in the Arab world. Most of its staff is comprised of ethnic Arabs. Alhurra "goes against everything that our country stands for [and] literally hands terrorists a microphone,” the Congressmen wrote.
