Mary Kostakidis’s legal team has come out in staunch opposition to claims her posts constitute hate speech, stressing they will defend her at every step in the lawsuit made against her by the CEO of the Zionist Federation of Australia.
ZFA CEO Alon Cassuto sought legal action against Kostakidis over comments and posts she shared of a speech by the now deceased Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, from 4 and 13 January 2024 on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Cassuto initially filed a complaint against the former SBS newsreader to the Australian Human Rights Commission in July 2024, lodging it under section 18C of Racial Discrimination Act 1975, which concerns offensive behaviour “because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin” in Australia.
Following the AHRC conciliation process having been terminated without any resolution, the ZFA had 60 days to take the matter to the higher authority which they did by filing legal action against Kostakidis with the Federal Court of Australia.
The matter returned to the Federal Court in Adelaide last week, where Kostakidis’s legal team sought to have parts of the lawsuit surrounding her posts struck out on the grounds it falls into the bounds of journalism.
Cassuto provided a statement to Neos Kosmos last week expressing his view that Kostakidis’s posts shared “hate speech” from Nasrallah.
Mark Davis (one of the members of the Greek Australian’s legal team) has refuted the notion Kostakidis’s posts themselves can be labelled as “hate speech”.
“It is nonsensical to us that Mary’s tweets could be regarded as hate speech,” Davis told Neos Kosmos.
“She was covering a large rally by Nasrallah that was reported around the world, Sky international broadcast the entire event. It was big news everywhere but not in Australia, so Mary tweeted some of it.”
Davis further noted that “if this case succeeds on such a small trigger point you can say goodbye to sharing opinions or having views in Australia”.
“Obviously, we will fight this every single step of the way.”
The case against Kostakidis has received significant attention with a solidarity event held in support of the Greek Australian in Sydney on Saturday (2 August).
The former SBS newsreader was present at the event which gathered roughly 300 people and stated that the powerful are afraid of the people and the community, while expressing her sadness over the loss of more than 200 Palestinian journalists.
She expressed optimism about the outcome of the court case, saying: “I am not intolerant. I do not want there to be anti-Semitism in society”.
Kostakidis has maintained from the beginning that she has meant no hurt through her reporting on the ongoing situation in Gaza, having stated in a previous social media post:
“To the Jews and/or Israelis in Australia who took my posts as an endorsement, I am sorry for their hurt, distress and pain.”
