The decision by the Adelaide Festival Board to exclude Palestinian Australian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah from Adelaide Writers’ Week on the grounds of “cultural sensitivity” is based on a dangerously broad and vague criterion for suppressing free speech.
The board appears to have overruled Writer’s Week director Louise Adler to remove Abdel-Fattah from the program, arguing it would not be culturally sensitive to include her so soon after the Bondi terror attacks, due to her “past statements”.
In response, more than 30 leading authors have withdrawn from Writer’s Week, which begins on February 28.
