WEST BANK (Al Jazeera) – Shireen Abu Akleh’s niece has decried the lack of action by the Biden administration to ensure justice for the slain journalist, renewing calls for an independent investigation into her killing.
Speaking at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Thursday, Lina Abu Akleh said she and her relatives will “not relent” until they achieve accountability for the killing of the Al Jazeera journalist, who was fatally shot by Zionist troops in May.
Abu Akleh was a U.S. citizen. Lina and other members of the late correspondent’s family visited Washington in July where they met with American officials and lawmakers to demand a U.S.-led probe into the incident.
“It’s been disappointing and frustrating that ever since we left DC until today there hasn’t been any meaningful action,” Lina told reporters on Thursday.
The younger Abu Akleh noted that days before her aunt was killed, Biden released a statement on Press Freedom Day that emphasized the importance of the free press and specifically paid a nod to female journalists.
“Yet, he still has not taken action. He continues to ignore the importance of this case. And most importantly, he isn’t upholding the values that he continues to preach,” Lina said of the U.S. president.
Biden, a staunch supporter of the Zionist regime who described himself as a Zionist, has also rebuffed the family’s request for a meeting.
Lina urged the United States to open a “thorough, independent, transparent investigation” into the murder of one of its own citizens, who was also a journalist and “most importantly a human being who was killed by the same army that the U.S. funds every single year”.
The Zionist regime, which has been imposing apartheid on Palestinians, according to leading rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, receives $3.8bn in military aid from Washington annually.
On Thursday, Lina called on journalists to press the Biden administration to play a more serious role in investigating the killing. “It’s very important that journalists continue to talk about Shireen because she was a journalist herself,” she said.