Court says Australian broadcaster ABC wrongfully dismissed journalist
The ABC fired radio host Antoinette Lattouf in December 2023 for expressing views supporting Palestine and calling for Israel to end its bombardment of Gaza. The sacking came shortly after she posted on social media a Human Rights Watch report alleging that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.
Lattouf took legal action after being dismissed three days into a five-day casual contract with the ABC.
The broadcaster broke employment law by terminating her 'for reasons including that she held political opinions opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza', Federal Court Justice Darryl Rangiah said in his ruling on Wednesday.
ABC senior management's consternation over the post (by HRW on Instagram) turned into a 'state of panic', the judge said, and a decision was made to take her off the air 'within the hour'.
The broadcaster has apologised after being ordered to pay Antoinette Lattouf $70,000 Australian dollars ($45,000) in compensation, with a further financial penalty yet to be decided.
'We regret how the decision to remove Ms Lattouf from air was handled and the distress occasioned her,' ABC managing director Hugh Marks said.
'It's clear the matter was not handled in line with our values and expectations,' he added in a statement.
'We also let down our staff and audiences, and this failure has caused understandable concern among the public and inside the organisation,' he added.
Since Israel's war on Gaza began in October 2023, journalists across the globe have been fired for expressing solidarity towards Palestinians.
Jackson Frank, a sports reporter in Philadelphia, was fired by PhillyVoice.com because of his tweets supporting the Palestinian cause.
Zahraa al-Akhrass was dismissed by her employer, Canada's Global News, due to her social media posts drawing attention to the suffering of the Palestinians.
Kasem Raad was fired from his job at Welt TV, a subsidiary of German media company Axel Springer, for questioning internal pro-Israel policies.
Big Tech companies including Google and Microsoft have also fired employees who have called on the companies to withdraw their support of Israel.
Last April, Google fired 28 employees following a sit-down protest over the tech giant's contract to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government.
Microsoft also fired two employees for organising a pro-Palestine vigil last year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
Southeast Asia's foreign assistance to fall more than $2bn next year
Development financing to Southeast Asia is expected to fall by more than $2bn in 2026 due to recent cutbacks by Western governments, according to a major Australian think tank. The Sydney-based Lowy Institute predicted in a new report on Sunday that development assistance to Southeast Asia will drop to $26.5bn next year from $29bn in 2023. The figures are billions of dollars below the pre-pandemic average of $33bn. Bilateral funding is also expected to fall by 20 percent from about $11bn in 2023 to $9bn in 2026, the report said. The cuts will hit poorer countries in the regions hardest, and 'social sector priorities such as health, education, and civil society support that rely on bilateral aid funding are likely to lose out the most', the report said. Fewer alternatives Cuts by Europe and the United Kingdom have been made to redirect funds as NATO members plan to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the shadow of Russia's war on Ukraine. The European Union and seven European governments will cut foreign aid by $17.2bn between 2025 and 2029, while this year, the UK announced it will cut foreign aid spending by $7.6bn annually, the report said. The greatest upset has come from the United States, where earlier this year, President Donald Trump shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashed nearly $60bn in foreign assistance. More recently, the US Senate took steps to claw back another $8bn in spending. The Lowy Institute said governments closer to home, like China, will play an increasingly important role in the development landscape. 'The centre of gravity in Southeast Asia's development finance landscape looks set to drift East, notably to Beijing but also Tokyo and Seoul,' the report said. 'Combined with potentially weakening trade ties with the United States, Southeast Asian countries risk finding themselves with fewer alternatives to support their development.' After experiencing a sharp decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese overseas development assistance has started to bounce back, reaching $4.9bn in 2023, according to the report. Its spending, however, focuses more on infrastructure projects, like railways and ports, rather than social sector issues, the report said. Beijing's preference for non-concessional loans given at commercial rates benefits Southeast Asia's middle- and high-income countries, but is less helpful for its poorest, like Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and East Timor. As China and institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank play a more prominent role in Southeast Asia, less clear is how Japan and South Korea can fill in the blanks, according to experts. Japan, South Korea Grace Stanhope, a Lowy Institute research associate and one of the report's authors, told Al Jazeera that both countries have expanded their development assistance to include civil society projects. '[While] Japanese and Korean development support is often less overtly 'values-based' than traditional Western aid, we've been seeing Japan especially move into the governance and civil society sectors, with projects in 2023 that are explicitly focused on democracy and protection of vulnerable migrants, for example,' she said. 'The same is true of [South] Korea, which has recently supported projects for improving the transparency of Vietnamese courts and protection of women from gender-based violence, so the approach of the Japanese and Korean development programmes is evolving beyond just infrastructure.' Tokyo and Seoul, however, are facing similar pressures as Europe from the Trump administration to increase their defence budgets, cutting into their development assistance. Shiga Hiroaki, a professor at the Graduate School of International Social Sciences at Yokohama National University, said he was more 'pessimistic' that Japan could step in to fill the gaps left by the West. He said cuts could even be made as Tokyo ramps up defence spending to a historic high, and a 'Japanese-first' right-wing party pressures the government to redirect funds back home. 'Considering Japan's huge fiscal deficit and public opposition to tax increases, it is highly likely that the aid budget will be sacrificed to fund defence spending,' he said.
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Why are so many Palestinian religious sites under attack by Israel?
Gaza's only Catholic church has been hit and Muslim cemeteries have been desecrated. Israel has bombed Gaza's only Catholic church – the latest religious site hit in the war. Hundreds of mosques were also damaged or destroyed, and cemeteries were obliterated, too. In the occupied West Bank, attacks on Christians and Muslims are increasing. Why is this happening? Presenter: James Bays Guests: Reverend Mitri Raheb – Lutheran pastor and president of Dar al-Kalima University Moataz El Fegiery – Vice president of EuroMed Rights Michael Lynk – Professor emeritus in the Faculty of Law at Western University
Al Jazeera
11 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Appeals and negotiations won't make Israel stop starving Gaza
On July 17, the Israeli army bombed the sole Catholic church in Gaza, killing three people and injuring at least 10. The parish priest, Gabriele Romanelli, who used to have almost daily calls with the late Pope Francis, was among the wounded. After the attack, there were statements of condemnation. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called it 'unacceptable'. Pope Leo said he was 'deeply saddened' by it – a statement many saw as 'vague' and 'cowardly'. The Israeli government was quick to declare it 'regretted' the attack. Amid the global outrage, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was able to negotiate for church officials to visit the Christian community, deliver limited food and medicine to both Christian and Muslim families, and evacuate some of the injured for treatment outside Gaza. These humanitarian actions, while welcomed by those in dire need in Gaza, are yet another sign of international failure. Why must the delivery of food, water and medicine be 'earned' through negotiation? Why are basic rights enshrined in international law subject to political bargaining? Palestinians deeply appreciate the church leaders' efforts. Their actions reflect compassion and moral clarity. But such steps should not be necessary. Under international humanitarian law, occupying powers have binding obligations to the people under their control. Securing access to food, water, medicine and critical services cannot be charitable favours – they are legal duties. The 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention and the 1907 Hague Regulations clearly state that civilians in occupied territory must be protected and provided with essential services, especially when the occupying power controls access to borders, infrastructure and life-sustaining resources. Blocking or delaying aid isn't just inhumane – it amounts to a war crime. International law also forbids the occupying power from forcibly transferring the local population or settling its own citizens on occupied land – practices that Israel continues in Gaza and the West Bank with impunity. The occupier must ensure uninterrupted humanitarian access free from delay, political conditions or coercive trade-offs. Israel has failed to comply on all these counts. But instead of facing consequences for its use of collective punishment, starvation tactics and attacks on civilian infrastructure – churches, hospitals, bakeries, schools – Israel receives concessions in exchange for promising to comply with basic legal norms. These 'deals' are then spun as diplomatic 'successes' by the powers that engage in them. During a recent lecture in Amman, the European Union's ambassador to Jordan, Pierre-Christophe Chatzisavas, revealed as much. According to him, EU 'discussions' about taking action on Israel's failure to comply with human rights provisions of the EU-Israel partnership agreement led to 'effective political pressure'. As a result, Israel 'agreed' to allow increased food and aid deliveries, fuel for electricity and desalination, infrastructure repairs, the reopening of humanitarian corridors through Egypt and Jordan, and access for UN aid workers and observers. This agreement led to the shelving of 10 proposed sanctions by the EU. Amnesty International described the move as a 'cruel and unlawful betrayal' of its stated principles. The problem with this 'deal' is that Israel is failing to implement it, just like with all others before it. According to EU sources quoted in the media, Israel allows just 80 trucks per day to go in, when Gaza needs more than 500. Whether 80 trucks indeed enter and how much of this aid actually reaches its intended recipients is unclear. Gangs regularly attack aid convoys, and the Israeli army shoots at anyone trying to protect these trucks from looters. Various agencies and organisations are ringing alarm bells about the epidemic of malnutrition killing children on a daily basis. Famine is real even if the UN, under pressure, is not yet willing to declare it. Meanwhile, Israeli forces and foreign mercenaries continue to kill people seeking aid at distribution sites operated by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was set up to take away the functions of United Nations agencies, most notably UNRWA, its aid agency for Palestinian refugees. Nearly 900 people have been killed at these sites since GHF's operations began in late May. If the EU as a whole will not act, individual member states still bear legal responsibility. At a minimum, European countries should suspend arms transfers, ban trade with illegal settlements and end cooperation with institutions complicit in the occupation and apartheid. These are not optional political stances. They are legal obligations. And this applies to the rest of the world. The danger of appealing to Israel to allow in aid instead of forcing it to do so through sanctions is clear: When war crimes are overlooked in exchange for temporary relief, impunity becomes normalised. Starvation becomes an acceptable weapon of war. Civilian lives turn into bargaining chips. The international community – including the EU, church institutions and world leaders – must continue to extend compassion and aid. But this must not replace justice. Mercy should be paired with resolve: Israel must be held to its legal and moral obligations. Palestinians – Christian and Muslim – must not be treated as pawns but as human beings entitled to dignity, safety and peace. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
