Tunisia joins boycott of Wonder Woman

Following Lebanon, Tunisia will cancel showings of Hollywood’s latest film, Wonder Woman.

The Tunisian Association of Young Lawyers filed a lawsuit to cancel the broadcast of the film which was scheduled for public viewing today.

According to the member of the Sedki Jelassi association, the cancellation was a reaction to comments made by the leading Israeli actress Gal Gadot in support of the “Zionist army who participated in the war against Gaza in 2014.”

President of the association, Yassine Younsi, told Business News: “we cannot accept that our children watch this film,” which would amount to “normalising relations with Israel.”

Several people took to social media to criticise the association’s position.

Lassaad Goubantini, a distributor of the film in Tunisia, confirmed that it will not be broadcast and expressed confusion about the decision to cancel. “The decision not to allow the film to be broadcast is based on unfounded accusations,” he told Huffington Post Tunisie.

The Popular Front has also taken the same step to cancel the broadcast of the film. “The Popular Front has even contacted the Minister of Cultural Affairs, Mohamed Zine El Abidine, who promised to prevent the projection of the film in Tunisian cinemas, according to Deputy Tarek Barrak,” according to their website.

Gadot has featured in a series of films that have been previously shown in Tunisia.

Planned for release tomorrow, on the sidelines of a festival in Algiers, the film’s release in Algeria is also in question.

“The film will be reprogrammed once the administrative constraints related to the exploitation rights have been settled,” Amine Idjer, head of communications at MD Ciné, told AFP.

He explained that the Algerian Ministry of Culture had ensured that this deprogramming had nothing to do with the campaign of boycott launched on the internet.

Lebanon was the first country to ban the film in protest of the Israeli actress’ role.