The New Arab / November 16, 2025
Richard Falk says Canada detained him en route to a Gaza tribunal in what he sees as an effort to silence critics of Israel.
Richard Falk, a leading international law scholar and former United Nations special rapporteur who investigated Israeli abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory, says Canadian authorities had detained and interrogated him for hours on “national security” grounds as he travelled to speak at a Gaza-related tribunal in Ottawa.
Falk (95) was travelling from the United States with his wife, fellow legal scholar Hilal Elver, when they were stopped at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Thursday.
The couple were heading to the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility, a two-day gathering of human rights and legal experts examining Canada’s role in Israel’s two-year assault on the Gaza Strip, which UN investigators and rights groups describe as a genocide.
Falk told Al-Jazeera that border agents had taken their passports, escorted them to an interview room, and said they were being held because authorities “were concerned that you pose a national security threat to Canada”.
He said he was questioned about his participation in the tribunal, his work on Israel–Palestine, and his views on Israel’s war on Gaza.
“It was my first experience of this sort ever in my life,” he said, noting that the incident took place on his 95th birthday.
Falk said the questioning lasted more than four hours and focused heavily on his writings on Israel, Gaza, and genocide. He described the interview as disorganised but politically telling.
Falk believes the detention is part of a wider effort, across several Western states, to silence voices critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“It suggests a climate of governmental insecurity, to try to clamp down on dissident voices,” he said. He added that the interrogation fits into a broader push to “punish those who endeavour to tell the truth about what is happening” in Gaza.
Global Affairs Canada did not respond to a request for comment.
Senator Yuen Pau Woo, who supports the tribunal, said he was “appalled” that two international law experts were interrogated on the basis that they might present a 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 said.
“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.”
Tribunal scrutinises Canada’s support for Israel
The People’s Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility examined Canada’s political, military, and economic ties to Israel.
Organisers argue that Canadian weapons exports and political backing have contributed to Israeli operations in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and where severe shortages of food, water, medicine, and shelter continue despite a ceasefire deal last month.
Activists say Canadian-made weapons continue to reach Israel through loopholes in the arms export system, often routed via the United States.
“The bombs have not stopped falling,” said Rachel Small of World Beyond War, speaking at the tribunal. “None of Israel’s genocide would be possible without the flow of weapons from the United States, from Europe, and yes, from Canada.”
At least 260 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to local health authorities.
Falk said that with Israel continuing an “incremental genocide”, attempts to intimidate or silence critics make it even more urgent to document conditions on the ground.
“It’s more important than ever to expose the reality of what’s happening,” he said.
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‘National security threat’ ? – 95-year-old human rights scholar Richard Falk interrogated for hours by Canada
Jon Queally
Common Dreams / November 15, 2025
“Clearly, the international repression of the Palestinian cause knows no bounds.”
Ninety-five-year-old Richard Falk—world renowned scholar of international law and former UN special rapporteur focused on Palestinian rights—was detained and interrogated for several hours along with his wife, legal scholar Hilal Elver, as the pair entered Canada for a conference focused on that nation’s complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“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 explained to Al-Jazeera in a Saturday interview from Ottawa in the wake of the incident that happened at the international airport in Toronto ahead of the scheduled event.
“It was my first experience of this sort–ever–in my life,” said Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, author or editor of more than 20 books, and formerly the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
Falk, who is American, has been an outspoken critic of the foreign policy of Canada, the United States, and other Western nations on the subject of Israel-Palestine as well as other issues. He told media outlets that he and his wife, also an American, were held for over four hours after their arrival in Toronto. They were in the country to speak and participate at the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility, an event scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Ottawa, the nation’s capital.
The event, according to the program notes on the website, was designed to “document the multiple ways that Canadian entities – including government bodies, corporations, universities, charities, media, and other cultural institutions–have enabled and continue to enable the settler colonization and genocide of Palestinians, and to articulate what justice and reparations would require.”
In his comments to Al-Jazeera, Falk said he believes the interrogation by the Canadian authorities—which he described as “nothing particularly aggressive” but “random” and “disorganized” in its execution—is part of a global effort by powerful nations complicit with human rights abuses and violations of international law to “punish those who endeavour to tell the truth about what is happening” in the world, including in Gaza.
Martin Shaw, a British sociologist and author of The New Age of Genocide, said the treatment of Falk and Elver should be seen as an “extraordinary development” for Canada, and not in a good way. For a nation that likes to think of itself as a “supporter of international justice,” said Shaw, “to arrest the veteran scholar and former UN rapporteur Richard Falk while he is attending a Gaza tribunal. Clearly, the international repression of the Palestinian cause knows no bounds.”
Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, a supporter of the Palestine Tribunal, told Al-Jazeera he was “appalled” by the interrogation.
“We know they were here to attend the Palestine Tribunal. We know they have been outspoken in documenting and publicizing the horrors inflicted on Gaza by Israel, and advocating for justice,” Woo said. “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.”
Jon Queally is managing editor of Common Dreams
