Pro-Palestinian activists chant ‘Free Palestine’ during a Proms concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in London, disrupting BBC’s live coverage of the event.
The orchestra was scheduled to perform at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Thursday to be broadcast at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Proms, but was cancelled after booing and shouting erupted, British media reported.
Gil Shaham was about to play Bruch’s violin concerto conducted by Zubin Mehta when booing and shouting began, said the reports.
Radio 3 interrupted its live broadcast at 7.45pm before returning later. Coverage was cut off again an hour later following more protests.
Pro-Palestinian group The Palestine Solidarity Campaign had called for the BBC to cancel the concert and urged people to boycott the event in protest.
One of the protesters, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, of the London School of Economics, said: “The orchestra is intimately connected with the Israeli regime.
“We are saying not to forget the denial of human rights in the occupied territories of Palestine”, he added.
BBC Proms is an annual summer concert series dating back to 1941 broadcast live on the radio.
