Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah has launched defamation proceedings against South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.
In a post shared to social media on Wednesday morning, Abdel-Fattah said her lawyers had issued a concerns notice under the Defamation Act to the premier, following “vicious personal assaults” in the wake of her removal from Adelaide Writers’ Week.
“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,” Abdel-Fattah said in the statement.
“We have never met and he has never attempted to contact me.
“He knows nothing about me, beyond what he has been told by the Murdoch press and the pro-Israel lobby, which he has apparently accepted without question.”
The author was cut from the writers festival lineup last week, after the official board decided that “it would not be culturally sensitive” to feature Abdel-Fattah on the program, following the Bondi terror attack in December.
The controversial move sparked backlash with over 114 authors withdrawing from the event, leading to the board’s redination and cancellation of the event.
Abdel-Fattah continued, saying that the on Tuesday the premier had “even further” and made a public statement that she was “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,” she said.
“It was defamatory and it terrified me.
“Enough is enough, I am a human being, not a punching bag.”
At a press conference on Tuesday, the SA premier said he was not aware of the concerns notice.
Other parties have also called for the premier to apologise for his statements and involvement in the festival’s cancellation.
“The premier needs to apologise, he needs to apologise for the statements that he has made about Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, but he also needs to apologise for his involvement in this whole affair,” Greens member Robert Simms.
“In meddling in the affairs of the festival board the premier has set off a chain reaction, and the premier through his actions has inflicted serious wounds on the Adelaide festival and the arts sector more broadly.”
Images: Instagram
