Silencing voices fractures festival

One of Australia's top writers' festivals was cancelled, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned, saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.

Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said she was stepping down from her role at Adelaide Writers Week after more than 180 international and Australian authors boycotted the event.

The boycott followed a decision by the festival's board to disinvite Palestinian-Australian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah. The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would not be "culturally sensitive" to continue programming her appearance so soon after the Bondi attack.

Abdel-Fattah condemned the decision as "a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship". Writing in The Guardian, Adler said the board's decision "weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn't".

She also criticised South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas for backing the board's move. "With alarming insouciance, protests are being outlawed, free speech is being constrained and politicians are rushing through processes to ban phrases and slogans," Adler wrote.

Australian media reported that former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian writer Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis were among those who had withdrawn from the festival. Since the controversy erupted, three members of the festival board and its chairperson have resigned