‘Shame on you’: Pro-Palestine protest at White House correspondents’ dinner
Al Jazeera
The US president offers a toast to ‘press freedom and democracy’ around the world but fails to mention the killings of many Palestinian journalists since October.
Activists in the United States demanding an end to Israel’s war on Gaza have rallied outside a hotel hosting the annual White House correspondent’s dinner, condemning President Joe Biden for his support of the military campaign and “under-coverage” of the conflict by Western news outlets.
However, Biden, who attended Saturday’s event in Washington, DC and delivered a 10-minute speech, made no mention of the war in Gaza or the grave humanitarian crisis there.
Protests at the gala event – which is normally devoted to presidents, journalists and comedians taking outrageous pokes at political scandals and each other – took place as antiwar demonstrations also spread through US college campuses, with students pitching encampments and withstanding police sweeps in an effort to force their universities to divest from companies enabling Israel’s military campaign on Gaza.
The protests in the US capital forced Biden’s motorcade to take an alternate route from the White House to the Washington Hilton, where more than 100 protesters, some of them waving Palestinian flags, shouted “shame on you” at guests hurrying inside.
At one point, the crowds chanted, “Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide”, while some protesters sprawled motionless on the pavement, next to mock-ups of bloodied flak vests with “press” insignia.
