The publishing house, Hachette, cancelled a contract with journalist Julie Burchill due to her Islamophobic comments on Twitter.
A statement by Hachette said: “We will no longer be publishing Julie Burchill’s book. This is not a decision we have taken lightly. We believe passionately in freedom of speech at Little, Brown and we have always published authors with controversial or challenging perspectives – and we will continue to do so.”
Hachette explained that it decided not to publish the book, Welcome to the Woke Trials, because Burchill used indefensible language when she communicated with the journalist Ash Sarkar.
Sarkar, on the other hand, said: “Burchill’s comments on Islam were not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint. and they crossed a line with regard to race and religion.”
Burchill’s book, narrates her story after her 2013 article for the Observer was removed because it contained transphobic words.
At that time, the Observer apologised for the offence caused in what it described as a “highly charged debate”.
The publisher had described the article as “a mischievous piece” in the Observer, adding that Burchill had not “anticipated the vitriolic reaction that her words would provoke”.
In the aftermath, Lynne Featherstone, the then Lib Dem MP who had held the government’s equalities brief in the coalition government, criticised Burchill and called for her to be sacked by the Observer.
Source: The Guardian