Porn films draw terrorist threats

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By INGRID ROUSSEAU Associated Press Writer

PARIS (AP) -- Anti-terrorism investigators in Paris are probing threats against a leading French cable TV channel over pornographic films it airs that can be viewed in North Africa, a judicial official said Tuesday.

Canal-Plus, France's first pay-TV channel, received letters from one or more people claiming to be Muslim and threatening to blow up its headquarters if it continues to broadcast once-a-month pornographic films, the official said. The official was not authorized to be named publicly about such matters.

Canal-Plus filed a legal complaint about the threats late last month, which prompted the anti-terrorist probe. No other details about the threats were available.

Canal-Plus officials did not return phone calls Tuesday seeking comment on the threats.

Canal-Plus and its sister channels show a range of programming, much of it family-friendly. It can be viewed via satellite in largely Muslim North Africa, where French is widely spoken but where social standards are vastly more conservative than in France.

As a new broadcaster in 1984, Canal-Plus introduced X-rated films on the first Saturday of the month to build its image as a more exciting alternative to France's traditional channels. Since then, Canal-Plus has become a mainstay of French television and provides financial support to French filmmakers.

French regulators and other critics have expressed concern about the channel's pornographic films in the past, saying they upset young people's moral well-being, degrade women and encourage unsafe sex.

 


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

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