Fired British-Pakistani journalist wins right to sue CNN over 'unfair dismissal, racial discrimination'

A British-Pakistani journalist, Saima Mohsin, has won the right to sue TV channel CNN over alleged unfair dismissal and racial discrimination.

Mohsin is taking CNN to an employment tribunal in the UK alleging that she was sacked three years after she injured her foot while on an assignment for the channel in Israel in 2014. The journalist said that she is speaking her “truth and doing this for the protection of all journalists and for women like me. For equality".

In a post shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, Mohsin wrote that the employment tribunal will hear her case against CNN, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, in London.

“I won. I won the hearing against CNN. The Employment Tribunal will hear my case on unfair dismissal, disability, discrimination, and equal pay in London,” Mohsin wrote.

In a follow-up post, Mohsin shared that she was injured in the field and was “not given adequate support or alternative duties and let go”.

“This is not how journalists risking their lives should be treated by media organisations,” she stressed.

According to Deadline, a judge has ruled in favour of Mohsin after a preliminary hearing in July this year, allowing the journalist’s case to be heard in the London Central Employment Tribunal.

CNN, meanwhile, has claimed that Mohsin’s case falls outside the territorial jurisdiction of the UK tribunal, the report added.

Mohsin had sustained serious injuries while she was covering the Israel-Palestine conflict for CNN in Jerusalem in 2014. Her cameraman accidentally drove over her and crushed her foot.

The journalist, in an Instagram post in October 2022, revealed that she would lose feeling in her left side after the accident — adding that she was still living in pain as the “neuropathic pain doesn’t just disappear”.

Following the 2014 mishap, Mohsin claimed that she asked CNN for alternative duties and support for rehabilitation, but the channel refused, according to a report in The Guardian.

The journalist also alleged that when she asked to be given the role of a presenter, which doesn’t involve much travel, she was told, “You don’t have the look we are looking for”, the report added.

CNN then terminated Mohsin’s contract in 2017.

“I worked hard to become an international correspondent and loved my job with CNN. I risked my life many times on assignment for CNN believing they would have my back. They did not,” she was quoted as saying when she decided to take network to the tribunal.

Besides this, Mohsin has also alleged that she faced racial and disability discrimination, claiming that she was denied high-profile on-air opportunities as managers preferred white American correspondents even when she was ready to go live, the report added.

According to the Deadline report, Mohsin was willing to settle the matter with CNN outside the court but the channel did not approve of it. She said that the channel exacerbated her “pain and suffering” by going ahead with the legal proceedings.

“I have constantly offered reinstatement or mediation and negotiations. I didn’t ask for this battle while learning to deal with an invisible disability and rebuild my life. But it was important that I take a stand,” Mohsin said in a statement.

Saima Mohsin now uses a walking stick and is unable to work full-time. She has made a record-ratings programme for ITV to create awareness about people in the UK having invisible disabilities, reported Geo News.

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