NEW YORK: Freelance CNN contributor from Pakistan, Adeel Raja, has been fired after tweeting ‘The world today needs a Hitler’ in response to the growing violence between Israel and Palestine.
The Islamabad-based journalist tweeted Sunday, “The world today needs a Hitler.” According to the Washington Examiner, Raja’s tweet was deleted about three hours after it was posted.
On Monday, Raja tweeted that he is “glad” his tweet highlighted the Palestinian cause “and brought it to limelight with me losing my job and the West’s claim of Freedom of expression and human rights! (sic).”
Glad a single tweet contributed to the #Palestine cause and brought it to limelight with me loosing my job and the West’s claim of Freedom of expression and human rights! https://t.co/pWnYvZrwsS
— Adeel Raja (@adeelraja) May 17, 2021
Meanwhile, CNN officials, in a statement, said Adeel Raja’s ‘reporting contributed to some newsgathering efforts from Islamabad. However, in light of these abhorrent statements, he will not be working with CNN again in any capacity.’
Raja had been working with CNN in Islamabad, Pakistan since August 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile, and his most recent byline on the news website appears to have been from September 16, 2020.
In 2016, he won the Agahi Award for Investigative Journalist of the Year, according to his Twitter account. The Agahi Awards are an annual series of awards for journalism in Pakistan.
The tweet comes amid increasing tensions between Israel and Palestine, which FOX News called the most violent conflict between the two nations since the 2014 Gaza War.
