German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has condemned a vicious anti-Semitic attack on Israel’s ‘Kan‘ public television news reporter Antonia Yamin that took place Sunday in Berlin.
Die Übergriffe gegen die Journalistin sind nicht akzeptabel. Dass eine israelische Reporterin von einigen Orten nicht ungestört auf Hebräisch berichten kann, darf nicht sein. In Deutschland müssen JournalistInnen sicher arbeiten können – egal in welcher Sprache. https://t.co/7KfW75ufBP
— Heiko Maas (@HeikoMaas)
“The assault against journalist Antonia Yamin is not acceptable,” Maas wrote Tuesday in a post on the Twitter social networking site.
“That an Israeli reporter cannot report undisturbed in Hebrew from some places must not be allowed. In Germany, journalists must be able to work safely – in no matter which language.”
Yamin, the Europe correspondent for Israel’s ‘Kan’ network, was filming a piece in Hebrew when a group of teenagers began disrupting her broadcast, shouting and blocking the camera — and then followed up by throwing a lit firecracker at her and her camerman.
The cameraman, who clearly did not lose his cool, simply moved the camera to focus on the firecracker, which was smoking and burning before it exploded near the spot where Yamin had been standing just a few seconds earlier.