Lawyers on behalf of Randa Abdel-Fattah have threatened legal action against South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas over remarks he made about the Palestinian author’s participation at the country’s largest free literary festival.
The uproar began when the board of the Adelaide Festival, which runs the Adelaide Writers Week, announced on 8 January they disinvited Ms Abdel-Fattah from the programme. The board argued that “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to programme her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi”.
An antisemitic terror attack at the Bondi Beach last month targeting a Jewish event left 15 people dead and dozens wounded. There was no suggestion that Ms Abdel-Fattah or her writings “have any connection with the tragedy”, the board members said.
But the decision led to a major controversy, followed by the resignation of the festival board, the withdrawal of more than 180 writers, at least one sponsor pulling out, and the eventual cancellation of the event.
The Palestinian-Australian author and academic’s legal action follows comments made by Mr Malinauskas during a press conference on Tuesday. Ms Abdel-Fattah accused him of suggesting she was an “extreme terrorist sympathiser” and linking her to the terror attack.
When asked to justify his support for Ms Adbel-Fattah’s removal, the politician resorted to a hypothetical scenario. He asked reporters: “Can you imagine if a far-right Zionist walked into a Sydney mosque and murdered 15 people?”
“Can you imagine that as premier of this state I would actively support a far-right Zionist going to Writers’ Week and speaking hateful rhetoric towards Islamic people? Of course I wouldn’t but the reverse has happened in this instance and I’m not going to support that either and I think that’s a reasonable position for me to have. It’s a view that I believe,” he said.
Ms Abdel-Fattah said in a statement shared on social media, her legal team issued a formal concerns notice to the premier under the country’s defamation laws. She said his public comments about her were a “vicious personal assault”.
“For the past week since I was cancelled by the Adelaide Festival Board, the South [Australian] Premier Peter Malinauskas has made many public statements about me and my character,” she wrote.
“We have never met and he has never attempted to contact me. Yesterday Mr Malinauskas went even further. He made a public statement that suggested I am an extremist terrorist sympathiser and directly linked me to the Bondi atrocity. This was a vicious personal assault on me, a private citizen, by the highest public official in South Australia. It was defamatory and it terrified me.
“Enough is enough. I am a human being, not a punching bag. My lawyers have today issued a concerns notice under the Defamation Act on Peter Malinauskas, This is his opportunity to undo some of the harm he has inflicted and stop punching down.”
Mr Malinauskas said he was unaware of whether a concerns notice – a formal, written warning in defamation law – had been received. He defended his conduct, saying: “Every step of this journey, all of my remarks and indeed actions, have been founded in a desire for compassion and people treating each other civilly and people will be able to judge my remarks on themselves.”
