Letter

In response to Hedges Report: NPC Australia caves to Israel Lobby, cancels talk on our betrayal of Palestinian journalists

National Press Club directors should hang their heads in shame

The letter below was forwarded to P&I.

To Maurice Reilly and the directors of the National Press Club

Your decision to cancel the 20 October address by prize-winning American journalist Chris Hedges is a disgrace and a betrayal of everything the National Press Club is supposed to stand for.

Your website claims you are “a vigorous champion of media freedom and a home away from home for journalists”.

Yet you refuse to have a highly-qualified speaker, who has rigorously documented the biggest deliberate slaughter of journalists in history — the murder of at least 278 reporters in Palestine, by the Israeli Defence Force. You claim that the decision is “in the interests of balancing out our program”.

Balancing with what? Propaganda for genocide? Justification for the assassination of journalists?

In the 62 years of the NPC’s existence, no greater shame has ever been brought on the organisation.

Reinstate Chris Hedges – or resign, all of you. You have no place in the ranks of those who stand for press freedom.

— Judith White from Tweed Heads, NSW