Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad won a 2022 Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism from the Thomson Reuters Foundation and the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund for her coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the West Bank.
Days after the award announcement, Thomson Reuters Foundation shared a statement on Tuesday about its decision to withdraw the Palestinian journalist's award after discovering an old social media post in which it appears to quote Hitler.
Alongside the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund, we have made the difficult decision to withdraw the #KurtSchork Local Reporter Award from Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad.
— Thomson Reuters Foundation (@TRF) October 18, 2022
Read our full statement here: https://t.co/2IzIvWEI1T pic.twitter.com/axBFHNtnPg
"The Thomson Reuters Foundation and the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund stand opposed to hate speech of any description," the statement read adding that Shatha Hammad's comment suggests an endorsement of Hitler's ideology.
The Palestinian journalist, who used to work as a freelancer for the Middle East Eye, commented in 2014: "Me and Hitler are one...friends and sleep together, but we have the same mentality, like, for example, the extermination of Jews."
Following the controversy, British media company Middle East Eye announced cutting ties with Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad.
"The decision has been made following the discovery of a social media post on Hammad’s Facebook
— Bruce Weingart (@bruce_weingart) October 18, 2022
feed that appears to quote Hitler – which, in doing so, suggests an endorsement of his ideology. The
comment appeared in 2014." https://t.co/johMM9urTn
Thomson Reuters Foundation further added that the decision to take away Shatha Hammad's award was 'very difficult', but the step was taken to protect the integrity of the Kurt Schork Awards.
According to the statement, Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad 'strongly' denies that this post is hers.
Journalist Kyaw Ye Lynn from Myanmar won a News Fixer Award and Kenneth R. Rosen, an American journalist, won the Kurt Schork Freelance Award for his multifaceted investigative work.
Shatha Hammad is a Palestinian freelance journalist. In June 2020, she won the New Voice award at the One World Media Awards.
