\n<\/p>\n
Director of Adelaide Writers\u2019 Week steps down amid wave of\u00a0speaker withdrawals and board resignations.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The director of a top writers\u2019 festival in Australia has stepped down amid controversy over the cancellation of a scheduled appearance by a prominent Australian Palestinian activist and author.<\/p>\n Louise Adler, the director of\u00a0Adelaide Writers\u2019 Week, said in an op-ed published on Tuesday that Randa Abdel-Fattah\u00a0had been disinvited by the festival\u2019s board despite her \u201cstrongest opposition\u201d.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Writing in The Guardian, Adler called Abdel-Fattah\u2019s removal from the festival lineup a blow to free expression and a \u201charbinger of a less free nation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cNow religious leaders are to be policed, universities monitored, the public broadcaster\u00a0scrutinised\u00a0and the arts starved,\u201d Adler wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you or have you ever been a critic of Israel? Joe McCarthy would be cheering on the inheritors of his tactics,\u201d she added, citing a figure in Cold War history commonly associated with censorship.<\/p>\n Adler\u2019s resignation is the latest blow to the beleaguered event, which has experienced a wave of speaker withdrawals and board resignations in protest of Abdel-Fattah\u2019s cancellation.<\/p>\n The festival\u2019s board announced last week that it had decided to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, a well-known Palestinian advocate and vocal critic of Israel, after determining that her appearance would not be \u201cculturally sensitive\u201d in the wake of a mass shooting at Sydney\u2019s iconic Bondi Beach.<\/p>\n Fifteen people were killed in the December 14 attack, which targeted a beachside Hanukkah celebration. Authorities have said the two gunmen were inspired by ISIL (ISIS).<\/p>\n Abdel-Fattah has called her removal \u201ca blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism\u201d and a \u201cdespicable attempt to associate me with the Bondi massacre\u201d.<\/p>\n On Monday, New Zealand\u2019s former prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced that she would not go ahead with her scheduled appearance at the festival, adding her name to a boycott that has swelled to some 180 writers, including former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and award-winning novelist Zadie Smith.<\/p>\n But Peter Malinauskas, the premier of the state of South Australia, as well as several federal politicians and a number of Jewish groups have backed the revocation of Abdel-Fattah\u2019s invitation.<\/p>\n Abdel-Fattah\u2019s critics have pointed to statements critical of Israel to argue that her views are beyond the pale.<\/p>\n She has, for instance, said that her \u201cgoal is decolonisation and the end of this murderous Zionist colony\u201d, and that Zionists \u201chave no claim or right to cultural safety\u201d.<\/p>\n In her op-ed on Tuesday, Adler said pro-Israel lobbyists are using \u201cincreasingly extreme and repressive\u201d tactics, resulting in a chilling effect on speech in Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cThe new mantra \u2018Bondi changed everything\u2019 has offered this lobby, its stenographers in the media and a spineless political class yet another coercive weapon,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cHence, in 2026, the board, in an atmosphere of intense political pressure, has issued an edict that an author is to be cancelled.\u201d<\/p>\n Separately on Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the country would hold a national day of mourning on January 22 to honour the victims of the Bondi Beach attack.<\/p>\n Albanese said the day would be a \u201cgathering of unity and remembrance\u201d, with flags to be flown at half-mast on all Commonwealth buildings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Director of Adelaide Writers\u2019 Week steps down amid wave of\u00a0speaker withdrawals and board resignations. The director of a top writers\u2019 festival in Australia has stepped down amid controversy over the cancellation of a scheduled appearance by a prominent Australian Palestinian activist and author. Louise Adler, the director of\u00a0Adelaide Writers\u2019 Week, said in an op-ed published […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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