The Thomson Reuters Foundation has canceled the awarding of the Kurt Schork Prize for International Journalism to Palestinian freelance journalist Shatha Hammad, after uncovering old social media posts in which she praised Adolf Hitler.
In 2014, Hammad posted a comment on Facebook saying, "Me and Hitler are friends. We share the same ideology, especially regarding the extermination of the Jews."
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Shatha Hammad's old social media posts in which she praised Adolf Hitler
(Photo: Twitter, HonestReporting)
In an article dating from the same year, the journalist had also described terrorists who killed five Israelis as "martyrs."
Hammad's comments glorifying Hitler and terrorism were unearthed by media monitoring organization HonestReporting, which said it found dozens of the journalist's posts of the same content.
"Let's be clear: this is not about denying an award to a Palestinian journalist. This is about relegating unrepentant anti-Semites to the fringes of society, not rewarding them with international recognition. Antisemitism is on the rise in the world, and the language of Shatha Hammad only serves to incite more violence against Jews," said Jacki Alexander, CEO of HonestReporting.
"The Thomson Reuters Foundation and the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund oppose hate speech of any kind," the foundation wrote in a statement.
"We have therefore taken this unusual step in order to protect the integrity of the Kurt Schork Awards, created to recognize and celebrate courageous and brilliant reporters who cover conflict, corruption and injustice and who risk their lives daily to tell the truth of the facts."
West Bank-based Hammad works as a freelance correspondent for Middle East Eye (MEE), a London-based online news site covering events in the Middle East and North Africa. Her articles mainly focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and feature in the "Occupation" category of the MEE website.
The Palestinian journalist was honored at the One World Media Awards in June 2020, where she won the New Voice Award for young journalists who have made a "substantial contribution to international journalism during the year."
The Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism are named after American freelance journalist Kurt Schork, who was killed in Sierra Leone while reporting for Reuters in 2000.