{"id":232253,"date":"2026-01-14T06:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/232253\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T06:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:34:07","slug":"legal-action-looms-over-adelaide-writers-week-fallout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/232253\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal action looms over Adelaide Writers’ Week fallout"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer Randa Abdel-Fattah is threatening South Australia’s premier with legal action, alleging a “vicious personal assault” that suggested she was an extremist terrorist sympathiser.<\/p>\n

A day after the Adelaide Festival cancelled Adelaide Writers’ Week following a mass boycott<\/a> over Abdel-Fattah’s axing from its programme, she announced on social media that her lawyers had issued a concerns notice under the Defamation Act against Peter Malinauskas.<\/p>\n

The premier had “made many public statements about me and my character”, she said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“Yesterday Mr Malinauskas went even further. He made a public statement that suggested l am an extremist terrorist sympathiser and directly linked me to the Bondi atrocity. <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Tuesday, Malinauskas said: “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.<\/p>\n

“The reverse is happening in this instance, and I’m not going to support that either, and I think that’s a reasonable position for me to have.”<\/p>\n

Abdel-Fattah said she was “a human being, not a punching bag” and her lawyers had issued a concerns notice under the Defamation Act.<\/p>\n

“This is his opportunity to undo some of the harm he has inflicted, and stop punching down,” she said.<\/p>\n

What’s led to Jacinda Ardern withdrawing from Adelaide Writers’ Week – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

Malinauskas’ office has been contacted for comment. <\/p>\n

The Adelaide Festival board’s decision to dump the writer triggered a boycott as authors and speakers pulled out in solidarity with the academic, resulting in the February event being cancelled on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The board initially claimed past statements from Dr Abdel-Fattah, who has criticised Israel on social media, meant it would not be “culturally sensitive” for her to appear at the festival so soon after an anti-Semitic terror attack at Bondi Beach.<\/p>\n

But on Tuesday, it apologised to Abdel-Fattah and announced remaining members of the board would quit immediately or be gone by February 2.<\/p>\n

Abdel-Fattah has been targeted by conservative Jewish groups for sharing posts critical of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Late on Tuesday, Abdel-Fattah said she was exhausted and rejected the board’s “disingenuous” apology.<\/p>\n

“It is clear the board’s regret extends to how the message of my cancellation was conveyed, not the decision itself,” she said.<\/p>\n

The board’s statement came hours after Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler resigned, saying she had fought against the prominent academic’s axing.<\/p>\n

The renowned publisher, whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, had helmed the writers’ week since 2022.<\/p>\n

“I cannot be party to silencing writers so, with a heavy heart, I am resigning from my role as the director of the AWW,” she wrote in an opinion piece published in The Guardian on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“Writers and writing matters, even when they are presenting ideas that discomfort and challenge us.”<\/p>\n

Arts Minister Andrea Michaels announced on Tuesday that former chairwoman Judy Potter would return to head up a new Adelaide Festival board.<\/p>\n

“We’ve had a very challenging week … we really need to wrap our arms around the Adelaide Festival as a state,” Michaels said.<\/p>\n

Former prime minister Jacinda Ardern<\/a>, Stella Prize winner Evelyn Araluen and former political prisoner and foreign correspondent Peter Greste were among the high-profile figures who pulled out of the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer Randa Abdel-Fattah is threatening South Australia’s premier with legal action, alleging a “vicious personal assault” that suggested…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[85,42,43,550,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-232253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-social-issues","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}