Australia's leading arts festival apologises for barring Palestinian writer
Adelaide Festival reverses its stance as the Palestinian author controversy sparks debate on hate speech.
A major Australian arts festival has apologised to a Palestinian-Australian writer after disinviting her over her remarks about Israel, sparking a controversy that forced the cancellation of this year's Adelaide Writers' Week.
The Adelaide Festival Board on Thursday retracted the decision to bar academic and novelist Randa Abdel-Fattah, inviting her back for next year's event and apologising to her "unreservedly for the harm the Adelaide Festival Corporation has caused her".
The board on Tuesday cancelled the writers' week, a premier Australian literary event and part of the Adelaide Festival, after 180 international and Australian authors boycotted it over Abdel-Fattah's ban.
The writers' week director, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author.
The festival's original board resigned in response to the backlash.
Abdel-Fattah accepts apology but warns it’s no ‘quick fix’
"Intellectual and artistic freedom is a powerful human right. Our goal is to uphold it, and in this instance Adelaide Festival Corporation fell well short," the new board said in a statement.
Abdel-Fattah accepted the apology "as acknowledgement of our right to speak publicly and truthfully about the atrocities that have been committed against the Palestinian people", but said in a post on X that "it is not a quick fix to repair the damage and injury inflicted."
She said she would consider the invitation to the 2027 event in the state of South Australia.
After Abdel-Fattah accepted the apology, the British band Pulp said they would perform at the Adelaide Festival, reversing their boycott.
Last week, the festival board said it had disinvited Abdel-Fattah from the writers' week because, "given her past statements", it would not be culturally sensitive to include her in the event "so soon after Bondi", a reference to last month's shooting rampage on a Jewish event that killed 15.
The board did not cite any specific statement made by Abdel-Fattah that led to her being disinvited. It said it did not suggest any of her writings have any connection with the Bondi Beach shootings.