Middle East: Iran Launches New Movie Channel in Arabic · Global Voices
Tarek Amr

Iran inaugurated its first Arabic language movie channel during the Muslim feast of Eid-ul-Fitr, which commemorates the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The new channel is meant to target about 300 million Arabic speakers according to the press release published on the website of the Iranian news and broadcasting network, PressTV.
The new channel, dubbed iFilm, will begin airing programs, mainly movies and television series, on Thursday afternoon Tehran time, the deputy head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Mohammad Sarafraz, told reporters on Monday.
The September 9 launch of the 24-hour television network is meant to familiarize some 300 million Arabic speakers in the Arab world with Iran's history and art.
According to Ya Libnan the new channel will also show documentaries on film making and movies reviews.
Amir Taheri also wrote in Uskowi blog about iFilm and how the equipment used there is assembled in Iran.
The iFilm international channel will broadcast on Badr 4 (Arabsat), frequency: 12169 MHz, vertical polarization, symbol rate: 27500, FEC 3/4. It can also be received on Atlantic Bird 4A (Nilesat), frequency: 11393 MHz, vertical position, symbol rate: 27500, FEC 3/4; and Eutelsat W6, frequency: 11564 MHz, vertical position, symbol rate: 3214, FEC 3/4.
And in Egypt, Hossam Eid wrote a tweet to his Egyptian friends about the new channel and its frequency:
Ya Libnan then continues that such a channel is believed to be one of the Iranian regime's tactics to break the siege on Iran:
This channel is not the first Iranian channel targetting the rest of the world.
Finally, as mentioned in Ya Libnan,  it's strange how Iran is trying to break the siege on them and launch satellite channels in different languages while the use of satellite receivers is still illegal in Iran.