The State Library of Victoria (SLV) checked writers’ social media accounts for content relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict before cancelling the program they were due to present and terminating their contracts, internal emails have revealed.
As reported by The Guardian, in March, the library postponed a series of writing events for teenagers and terminated the contracts of the six writers engaged to present the workshops, citing concerns over “child and cultural safety”. Three of the writers – Omar Sakr, Alison Evans, and Jinghua Qian – speculated that the cancellation was due to their pro-Palestine stance.
The internal emails, which are heavily redacted and were obtained via freedom of information by a lawyer contracted by the three writers, shows Maxine McKew – a board member of the library and a former Labor MP and journalist – had requested a “clear read” on everything Sakr had posted after Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7th October 2023.
The FoI documents do not make it clear how the investigation into Sakr’s posts started and at what point the board got involved.
The emails, sent from McKew to the library’s chief executive, Paul Duldig, in mid-February, noted a post written by Sakr, an award-wining poet, in the “immediate aftermath” of 7th October.
“Do we have a clear read on everything Omar Sakr has posted since then? If not, we should know and soon,” McKew wrote.
McKew noted in the email that Sakr was “perfectly entitled to air these views”, but the library “must adhere to a strict policy of neutrality”.
“It doesn’t mean we vet everyone for their social and political views,” McKew wrote to Duldig. “But it does mean on a subject such as Gaza/Israel we have a duty to be absolutely thorough and super careful about the way language is used by the people we engage.
The next day, library staff were asked to do “a quick scan of the social and media coverage of the other presenters”, internal emails show. The name of the person who sent the request has been redacted.
A response to the request outlined content related to the conflict posted by the writers, including a post by Qian in “solidarity with Antoinette Lattouf”, who was found by the Fair Work Commission to have been sacked from a casual presenting role on ABC local radio after she posted a Human Rights Watch report about the war in Gaza.
Of the five posts outlined for Qian, four were related to Palestine, and one related to supporting the Australian academic Yang Hengjun – who has been given a suspended death sentence in China.
Minutes from a meeting held on 19th February that included updates on programming outline that Duldig had read blog posts by Sakr and that “on these grounds there was no reason not to proceed with the presenter”. The minutes also show that Creative Victoria was contacted for “their advice”, and an action item was listed to schedule a meeting with the board.
The documents do not reveal who was involved in the final decision to cancel the series of events, or when that decision was made, and the SLV has repeatedly stated the cancellation was not based on the political beliefs or identity of anyone involved with the program.
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