Montreal, Canada – A former United Nations special rapporteur who investigated Israeli abuses against Palestinians says he was interrogated by Canadian authorities on “national security” grounds as he travelled to Canada this week to attend a Gaza-related event.
Richard Falk, an international law expert from the United States, told Al Jazeera that he was questioned at Toronto Pearson international airport on Thursday alongside his wife, fellow legal scholar Hilal Elver.
“A security person came and said, ‘We’ve detained you both because we’re concerned that you pose a national security threat to Canada,'” Falk, 95, said on Saturday in an interview from Ottawa, the Canadian capital. “It was my first experience of this sort – ever – in my life.”
Falk and Elver – both US citizens – were travelling to Ottawa to take part in the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility when they were held for questioning.
The tribunal brought together international human rights and legal experts on Friday and Saturday to examine the Canadian government’s role in Israel’s two-year bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which a UN inquiry and numerous rights groups have described as a genocide.
Falk said he and his wife were held for questioning for more than four hours and asked about their work on Israel and Gaza, and on issues of genocide in general. “[There was] nothing particularly aggressive about his questioning,” he said. “It felt sort of random and disorganised.”
But Falk said he believes the interrogation is part of a global push to “punish those who endeavour to tell the truth about what is happening” in the world, including in Gaza.
“It suggests a climate of governmental insecurity, I think, to try to clamp down on dissident voices,” he added.
Asked about Falk’s experience, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which manages the country’s border crossings, told Al Jazeera that it cannot comment on specific cases due to privacy regulations.
The CBSA’s role “is to assess the security risk and admissibility of persons coming to Canada”, spokesperson Rebecca Purdy said in an email. “This process may include primary interviews and secondary examinations,” she said.
“This means that all travellers, foreign nationals and those who enter Canada by right, may be referred for secondary inspection – this is a normal part of the cross-border process and should not be viewed as any indication of wrongdoing.”
Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian foreign ministry, did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Falk’s allegation that his interrogation is part of a broader, global crackdown on opposition to Israel’s Gaza war.
Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, a supporter of the Palestine Tribunal, said he was “appalled” that two international law and human rights experts were questioned in Canada “on the grounds that they might pose a national security threat”.
“We know they were here to attend the Palestine Tribunal. We know they have been outspoken in documenting and publicising the horrors inflicted on Gaza by Israel, and advocating for justice,” Woo told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday afternoon.
“If those are the factums for their detention, then it suggests that the Canadian government considers these acts of seeking justice for Palestine to be national security threats – and I’d like to know why.”
Like other Western countries, Canada has been under growing pressure to cut off its longstanding support for Israel as the Israeli military assault on Gaza killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and plunged the coastal territory into a humanitarian crisis.
Ottawa announced in 2024 that it was suspending weapons permits to its ally as pressure mounted over the war.
But researchers and human rights advocates say loopholes in Canada’s arms export system have allowed Canadian-made weapons to continue to reach Israel, often via the United States.
Rights groups have also called on the Canadian government to do more to support efforts to ensure that Israel is held accountable for abuses against Palestinians in Gaza, including war crimes.
“This violence is not in the past tense; the bombs have not stopped falling,” Rachel Small, the Canada organiser for the antiwar group World Beyond War, said during the Palestine Tribunal’s closing day on Saturday.
“And none of that violence, none of Israel’s genocide … [would be] possible without the flow of weapons from the United States, from Europe, and yes, from Canada,” Small said.
At least 260 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month, according to health authorities in the besieged coastal enclave.
Palestinians also continue to reel from a lack of adequate food, water, medicine and shelter supplies as Israel maintains strict curbs on humanitarian aid deliveries.
Against that backdrop, Falk told Al Jazeera on Saturday that “it’s more important than ever … to expose the reality of what’s happening” on the ground in Gaza.
“There’s this whole false sense that the genocide is over,” he said. “[But Israel] is carrying out the genocidal project in a less aggressive way, or a less intense way. It’s what some have called the incremental genocide.”
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