ZFA CEO takes legal action with AHRC
Leibler said the action is asking for an apology to the Australian Jewish community and for the offending tweets to be removed.
Former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis is facing a formal complaint before the Australian Human Right Commission (AHRC) over her comments about Jews and Israel.
Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive Alon Cassuto is taking the action, saying that Kostakidis breached racial discrimination laws by republishing a speech by Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, in which he called for the ethnic cleansing of Jews “from the river to the sea.”
He said he is taking the action in the context of the current situation in which since 7 October 2023, thousands of Jewish Australians have been victimised, harassed and racially vilified, businesses have been boycotted and people’s safety threatened.
Cassuto said at a press conference on Sunday that it is irresponsible and dangerous for a person with Mary Kostakidis’ influence and authority to repeat calls by a terrorist for Jews to the ethnically cleansed.
“Since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Mary Kostakidis has shared extreme propaganda with her 30,000 Twitter followers, including a Hamas pamphlet that sought to justify its sadistic massacre. For the sake of the precious multicultural nation that we have, we must stand up against racial hatred, no matter who is being targeted and who is spreading it” Cassuto said.
Ms Kostakidis has responded on Twitter by saying that the ZFA are trying to silence her.
She also claims that she has not been contacted by Mr Cassuto’s lawyers.
ZFA President Jeremy Leibler, supporting Cassuto, told the press conference that the media just last week reported a number of sickening conspiracy theories that Mary Kostakidis has spread, which deny the events of the Hamas massacre on the seventh of October.
“She has also shared conspiracy theories that denied the use of sexual violence and indeed blames Israel for the Hamas terror attacks.
Leibler said the action is asking for an apology to the Australian Jewish community and for the offending tweets to be removed.
“But this is really about sending a message as well to hold Mary Kostakidis to account, someone with a very significant platform, [who] we believe is misusing her platform. We cannot bring conflicts from the other side of the world on the streets of Australia” Leibler said.
Cassuto is represented by Arnold Bloch Leibler and barristers Michael Borsky KC and Collette Mintz.
The ZFA announcement comes off the back of the ECAJ announcing earlier this year that it had lodged two complaints with the AHRC against two western Sydney Muslim hate preachers.
The complaints allege that speeches by Wissam Haddad and Sheikh Ahmed Zoud included derogatory generalisations about Jewish people, such as descriptions of them as “monsters”, “criminals”, “bloodthirsty”, raised on “terrorism, violence, and killing”, a “vile people”, and a “treacherous people”, and claims that “their hands are in everywhere in businesses…in the media”.
The AJN understands the ECAJ’s litigation remains ongoing and that Wissam Haddad, aka Abu Ousayd, has instructed lawyers who have been in touch with the AHRC.
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