WDR finally decides against working with Nemi El-Hassan
Nemi El-Hassan
Source: FUNK
“There is no longer any trust in future cooperation,” said WDR, justifying its final decision against Nemi El-Hassan. This had accused the broadcaster of wanting to pull itself out of the line of fire in the debate about its participation in an Al-Kuds demonstration.
Dhe Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR) has finally decided against working with Nemi El-Hassan. The public broadcaster in Cologne announced this to the German press agency on Tuesday.
The journalist had previously published a guest article in the “Berliner Zeitung” in which she criticized the WDR for dealing with her in the past few weeks. As a reason for its decision, the broadcaster said: “There is no longer any trust for future cooperation.”
The whole case of the employment of El-Hassan is related to accusations of anti-Semitism that have arisen. Originally, the journalist was supposed to moderate the science program “Quarks”. It was scheduled to start in November. In the context of El-Hassan’s new assignment, “Bild” reported on its participation in an Al-Kuds demonstration in Berlin a few years ago. In the past, anti-Semitic slogans and symbols of the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah movement were repeatedly shouted at the annual Al-Kuds demonstrations in Berlin. El-Hassan had distanced himself from the demo in a statement after the media report.
The WDR had decided against a presentation of El-Hassan in the science program. The reason given by the broadcaster was “that the dispute over her person has led to an inappropriate politicization of the renowned science program”. The ARD-Anstalt had then initially further checked whether it could possibly work as an author for “Quarks”.
On Tuesday, El-Hassan accused the WDR in the guest article in the “Berliner Zeitung” in the course of the debate initiated by the “Bild” report that he wanted to pull himself out of the line of fire. “The reaction of the WDR exemplarily shows that things are going badly with the widely vaunted culture of debate in this country”, criticized El-Hassan.
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