(New York) A mock protest encampment set up for a television shoot on a New York college campus has sparked a real backlash from pro-Palestinian activists, who staged their own protest against the filming, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
The scenario took place Monday and Tuesday at Queens College, where the CBS television series FBI: Most Wanted was filming an upcoming episode involving a climate change protest, the New York Times.
Like some of the encampments that have formed on college campuses in the United States and elsewhere this spring to protest Israel’s actions in its war against Hamas, the televised demonstration featured tents, sleeping bags and handmade banners.
Members of some pro-Palestinian groups, Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine, took offense and staged their own protest on the sidelines of the mock demonstration, the TimesProduction ended early Monday after the protesters showed up, and a group of about 15 demonstrators returned Tuesday, the newspaper reported. It was unclear whether they were students.
The newspaper reported that the protesters refused to speak to a reporter. However, in slogans and leaflets, they called the filming of the movie “propaganda” and the use of the campus “a clear attempt to simultaneously demonize and profit from the student movement.”
The series’ producers declined to comment, the Times.
Queens College said in a statement that the “campus community” was informed in advance of the television filming, including its “focus on a climate change/environmental protest at a fictional college.”
Filming ended as planned at noon on Tuesday, according to the Times.
The Gaza-related student protest movement this year was sparked by a demonstration at Columbia University in New York and then swept across many other U.S. campuses. Encampments have sprung up at some schools, but not at Queens College.