Strong protests at correspondents’ dinner in the US

– Shame on you! shouted protesters dressed in Palestine scarves and T-shirts with the inscription “press” outside the Washington hotel on Saturday.

The target was festively dressed American media people on their way in to the US President’s annual press club gala dinner at the White House.

The news agency AP writes that the dinner guests rushed in to get away from the crowd, which should consist of several hundred people.

At the correspondents’ dinner, it is traditional for the president to make several jabs at the press, and the tone is usually very humorous.

This year, Colin Jost from “Saturday Night Live” is also coming to entertain.

Criticizes the media coverage

This year, however, the war in Gaza, and also the American media’s coverage of it, cast large shadows over the dinner.

– Western media, we see you and all the horrors you hide, shouted the crowd according to AP.

The protesters also shouted out Joe Biden’s support for Israel.

Anthony Guglielmi, who is a spokesman for the Secret Service, says that they have closed off several streets in connection with the event, and that they are taking several measures to ensure the safety of the party participants.

He points out that people have the right to demonstrate.

– But we will not tolerate violent or destructive behaviour.

Gaza journalists called for boycott

The demonstrators outside the Washington Hotel tell the AP that they are protesting to draw attention to the killing of journalists in Gaza.

According to the organization Committee to protect journalists, almost 100 journalists have been killed since the war broke out on 7 October.

Last week, around twenty journalists in Gaza sent a letter to their colleagues in the US asking for a boycott of the dinner.

– We are subjected to arrests, interrogations and torture by the Israeli military, just because we commit the “criminal act” of journalistic integrity.

Al Jazeera writes that their reporter Hind Khoudary is one of those who signed the letter.

– It is shameful for the media to eat and laugh with President Biden when he facilitates Israel’s destruction and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, says Sandra Tamari, who heads the American-based group Adalah Justice Project, which works to promote the Palestinians’ cause.

She has contributed to writing the letter from the journalists in Gaza, AP writes.