Source : Perth Now news
News Corp is being taken to court over alleged racial discrimination and hatred against Palestinians and Arab Muslims.
Australia Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni, Engy Abdelsalam and five others have filed a legal action in the Federal Court against News Corp Australia and its subsidiaries responsible for Sky News, The Australian and The Herald Sun.
The group, represented by Birchgrove Legal, has accused the publications of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act by unlawfully publishing or broadcasting discriminatory content, and public comments made in response, and failing to remove those comments.
It also alleges their editorial agendas were irresponsible, bad-faith, sensationalist, factually distorted, and more, which fostered hate, ridicule, dehumanisation, and collective blame against Muslim, Arab and Palestinian Australians.
“During this current genocide, Palestinians who are grieving and suffering have been openly ridiculed and demonised by News Corp,” Mr Mashni said.
“Those companies have engaged in hateful, extreme, dangerous, divisive and racist conduct, and it’s time that they stopped being treated as credible news sources.”
Should the group’s case succeed, the outlets could be forced to take down the alleged discriminatory content, pay damages and make a donation to a community organisation that aims to eliminate racial discrimination.
High-profile commentators and journalists including Andrew Bolt, Rita Panahi, Caleb Bond and Sharri Markson have all been named as individuals who created or broadcast the allegedly discriminatory content.
But by targeting the corporations, rather than those individuals, this is one of the first times such legal action has been taken against a major Australian news company.
The issue was first lodged to the Australian Human Rights Commission in 2025, which found there were no prospects for conciliation, paving the way for the group to take the issue to the Federal Court.
Evidence in the original complaints included a February 2025 opinion piece which claimed “the underbelly of anti-Semitism is very strong within Muslim communities”, a September 2024 opinion piece that labelled Islam “the modern world’s most violent religious ideology”, and a comment made on Sky that “some children in Gaza and the West Bank are brought up to hate Jews”.
Israel’s bombardment, blockade and ground invasion of Gaza has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, put almost 80 per cent of the territory’s 2.3 million residents at risk of starvation and left most without homes, according to the territory’s local health ministry and the UN.
It came after Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the Australian government, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1200 Israelis and taking 250 hostages.
AAP has contacted News Corp for comment.
