Top Australian writers’ festival cancelled after Palestinian author barred

(Reuters)

SYDNEY, Jan 13 – One of Australia’s top writers’ festivals was cancelled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.

Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in February, following a decision by the festival’s board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author.

The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month’s shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.

Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism, and prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.

The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday its decision last week to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, on the grounds it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event “so soon after Bondi”, was made “out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event”.