A journalist reportedly working with CBS News has lit himself on fire to protest the biased US media coverage of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza which has killed tens of thousands of people including women and children.
The man was seen trying to light himself on fire during a pro-Palestinian rally near the White House in Washington, DC in Lafayette Park on Saturday. A large number of protesters attended the rally.
Photos taken at the scene near the White House captured the harrowing moments the man’s arm burst into flames.
Since the incident, the man has been reportedly identified as CBS photojournalist Samuel Mena Jr.
In the footage, he cries out that he is a journalist as the officers restrain him. “We spread the misinformation.”
Mena, who claims to be a “visual storyteller,” was seen waving his burning arm through the air as he shrieked in pain.
In the disturbing photos and footage of the incident, Mena can be seen screaming after he set his left arm ablaze in the middle of the street as shocked DC Metropolitan police officers and bystanders rush over towards him.
Mena held his burning left arm high in the air to show the others as several people quickly doused him with water and beat out the flames with pieces of clothing.
Mena, who used to work as a journalist in Phoenix, Arizona, was then taken to hospital with non-threatening burns to his arms.
He is a 2018 graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication according to his LinkedIn and had worked at Arizona’s Family for about two years.
Local media reported Mena had been fired from his media employer after the act of self-immolation at the rally.
Western media, particularly right-wing media, has been particularly hostile towards pro-Palestinian voices, resulting in the continued Israeli regime forces’ genocidal war on the helpless Palestinians trapped in the besieged Gaza Strip for almost a year now.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli war machine has killed about 42,000 Gazans, while extending the war to the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, while threatening to attack other countries across West Asia.
