The WDR has drawn a line under the Nemi El-Hassan case and decided against working with the journalist.
Cologne – The West German Broadcasting Corporation (WDR) has finally decided against working with the journalist 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. The broadcaster gave the reason for his decision: “There is no longer any trust for future cooperation.”
Nemi El-Hassan had taken part in the Al-Kuds demonstration
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 task, the “Bild” newspaper reported on her participation in an Al-Kuds demo in Berlin a few years ago. In the past, anti-Semitic slogans were repeatedly shouted at the annual Al-Kuds demonstrations in Berlin and symbols of the pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah movement were shown. El-Hassan had distanced himself from the demo in a statement after the media report.
Nemi El-Hassan criticizes WDR
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. (sot with dpa)
