"The new Adelaide Festival board has issued a public apology to Palestinian-Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, and has promised she will be invited to Adelaide Writers' Week in 2027. Abdel-Fattah immediately accepted the apology, posting on Instagram that it was a vindication of our collective solidarity and mobilisation against anti-Palestinian racism, bullying and censorship. She said she was still considering the board's invitation to appear at the 2027 event."
"In a statement on Thursday morning, Adelaide Festival Corporation acknowledged they had previously said they would exclude Abdel-Fattah from this year's event because it would be culturally insensitive to allow her to participate. We retract that statement. We apologise to Dr Abdel-Fattah unreservedly for the harm the Adelaide Festival Corporation has caused her. 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."
"Tony Berg, a former board member and the former managing director of Macquarie Bank, issued a statement to the media accusing the former Adelaide Writers' Week director Louise Adler and Abdel-Fattah of a selective and utterly hypocritical devotion to free speech. In the statement circulated by Berg this week, the Sydney businessman said he was utterly astonished at Adler's claim she had resigned in the name of free speech, and at Abdel-Fattah's outrage at being cancelled."
Adelaide Festival Corporation issued an unreserved apology to Randa Abdel-Fattah and promised she will be invited to Adelaide Writers' Week in 2027. Abdel-Fattah immediately accepted the apology, described it on Instagram as a vindication of collective solidarity and mobilisation against anti-Palestinian racism, bullying and censorship, and said she was still considering the invitation. The corporation retracted a prior statement that it would exclude her because participation would be culturally insensitive and apologised for the harm caused. The apology acknowledged that the corporation fell short in upholding intellectual and artistic freedom. The apology follows controversies including Adler's resignation and cancellation of the 2026 writers' festival.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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