Florida Mayor Drops Threat to Evict Cinema for Screening 'No Other Land'

Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner said on Wednesday he dropped his threat to evict an art house cinema from city property for screening Oscar-winning "No Other Land," a film about the Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The move came after multiple rights advocates and artists in recent days criticized Meiner's threat and said it would violate free speech.

Meiner said earlier he sought to evict and halt future grant payments to the non-profit O Cinema in South Beach.

City commissioners were scheduled to vote on Wednesday on a resolution introduced by Meiner and made public last week.

In the session, a majority of the seven-member commission said they opposed the resolution, as did dozens of people who gathered.

Meiner said he would introduce another resolution aimed at encouraging O Cinema to show movies highlighting "a fair and balanced viewpoint of the current war" and it would be deferred to a later meeting.