Image by courtesy of sundance film festival

Michael Moore, the American film director, sent a message Wednesday on his Twitter social networking account saying that the Palestinian co-director of the film “5 Broken Cameras,” Emad Burnat, had been detained early Wednesday morning by U.S. immigration officials at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving at the airport overnight.

Burnat flew to Los Angeles to attend Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, at which his film, which he directed alongside Israeli Guy Davidi, is in the running for best documentary. The film documents the friction between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank village of Bil’in over the building of Israel’s security fence adjacent to the village.

According to Moore’s Twitter message, after Burnat arrived on a flight to Los Angeles with his wife and 8-year-old son, immigration authorities ushered them into a waiting area and claimed that Burnat lacked the necessary documentation to prove that he was in Los Angeles to attend the Oscar ceremony.

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“I called Academy officials who called lawyers. I told Emad to give the officers my phone # and to say my name a couple of times,” Moore tweeted. “After 1.5 hrs, they decided to release him & his family & told him he could stay in LA for the week & go to the Oscars. Welcome to America,” Moore wrote.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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