Police were forced to remove anti-Israel protesters from a film screening at the Doc Edge film festival in Wellington last night.
The police also removed a beeping black box that was chained to a seat to disrupt the screening of Ben Guiron, Epilogue, a documentary about former Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, Newsroom reports .
Peace Action Wellington claimed the documentary, which they described as "Zionist propaganda," breached the cultural boycott of Israel and wanted it removed from the festival.
"This is state-sponsored propaganda the festival are planning to screen at the expense of people living under a brutal and illegal occupation," spokesperson Alex Davies said.
They also claimed that funding from the Israeli embassy for the documentary made the festival complicit with the Israeli government.
The fact that the movie was screened on the eve of the anniversary of Israel declaring its independence in 1948 also aggravated protestors. Palestinians refer to May 15 as the "Nakba" or "catastrophe".
Doc Edge organisers said the demand for the film to be withdrawn were an affront to freedom of speech, adding that the they and the government were not part of a cultural boycott.
"(The festival) will not bow to pressure groups who seek to censor content on the basis that a film takes a point of view with which that group disagrees," Doc Edge chair, Glenn Johnstone said.
The protest is the latest in an anti-Israel campaign that successfully persuaded Lorde to cancel a concert in Tel Aviv.
The protest comes as Gaza suffered its deadliest day in four years when 52 Palestinians were killed in Gaza during violent protests against the opening of the new US embassy In Jerusalem.
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