AJC Welcomes CNN Decision to Remove Middle East Editor

News provided by

Jul 08, 2010, 10:44 ET

NEW YORK, July 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC welcomed the decision of broadcaster CNN to remove its Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs, Octavia Nasr, following her public praise for the recently deceased Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, one of the leading figures behind the terrorist Hezbollah movement.

"CNN has acted wisely and responsibly," said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Journalistic standards demand impartiality—praising a terrorist leader makes a mockery of both those standards and the viewing public."

AJC had urged CNN to publicly apologize for Nasr's comments, made on her Twitter feed, pointing out Fadlallah's record of vicious anti-Semitism and his central role in the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, which claimed the lives of 241 American servicemen.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee