Auckland Peace Action is issuing a statement to publicly correct the record about a protest action that occurred in Wellington in 2018.

This action occurred at the screening of the film Ben Gurion at the Doc Edge Film Festival. Both Auckland Peace Action and our sister organisation Peace Action Wellington opposed the showing of this film as it is subject to an international boycott on behalf of Palestinian civil society organisations.

At both Wellington and Auckland screenings, the screenings were disrupted by activists with noisemakers and alarms. Subsequently, the Doc Edge director alleged that there was a fake bomb at the Wellington screening, and this was reported by Newhub. This was a complete lie.

There was never, ever any "fake bomb" of any sort whatsoever. NZ Police attended both protests and were fully aware that the items in the theatres were noisemakers, as were the theatre-goers. The theatre was not evacuated and no one was arrested.

This claim was never subject to any verification by the Police and no comment was sought from either peace group. Instead it was published as fact, and has remained unchallenged.

It has become apparent that a complete rebuttal of this fake news is make publicly and our position is clear.

We unequivocally reject tactics that instill the fear in people. We did not on this occasion, and will never, engage in actions that cause fear or harm to people.

An APA activists was interviewed on Newshub on Thursday, 13 February 2019 and asked about this action. She was not a member of either group at the time of the action, nor in attendance at either protest, and was unaware of the details. She simply accepted as fact the statements put to her by the interviewer.

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