Memorial service to be held for slain reporter

NEW MILFORD — A memorial service for a prominent Palestinian-American reporter killed by a sniper in Jenin, West Bank, Palestine, will be held on the New Milford Green at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was 51 at the time of her death, worked for the news division of Al Jazeera for 25 years.

New Milford resident Justine McCabe, who is organizing the event, said that at the service, mourners will present photographs of Akleh and comment on her life and murder.

McCabe, who was an academic anthropologist who worked in Lebanon, Iran and Palestine before training as a clinical psychologist, said Akleh was a “well respected journalist, known all over the Arab world and beyond. More than that, she was a very brave woman, a great model for young Arab women particularly, seemingly fearless in trying to report the truth of what she saw as it happened, particularly amidst the danger that characterizes life in the occupied Palestinian territories.”

Associated Press In this undated photo provided by Al Jazeera Media Network, Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist for Al Jazeera network, stands in an area where the Dome of the Rock shrine at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem is seen at right in the background. Abu Akleh, a well-known Palestinian female reporter for the broadcaster's Arabic language channel, was shot and killed while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin on May 11.