By Kari Milchman

A Pakistani man was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly providing New Yorkers with satellite broadcasts of a television station understood to be operated by the terrorist group, Hezbollah. Staten Island resident, Javed Iqbal, 42, feels that he has done nothing illegal by facilitating the transmission of information via satellite. But U.S. authorities categorized the channel in dispute, al Manar, as a terrorist entity back in March, prohibiting business relations with it. Farhan Memon, an assistant to Iqbal’s lawyer, suggested this was an issue of free speech. A search warrant revealed that Iqbal was interviewed at JFK airport in May when he returned from a trip to Lebanon and that FBI agents subsequently visited his home, as well as his two satellite television stores in Brooklyn. If convicted, Iqbal faces up to five years in jail under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.