Former UN rapporteur who investigated Zionists’ crimes interrogated in Canada

Falk, 95, who had been appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2008 for a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur, for years investigated Zionist regime’s human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied territories and is an internationally-renowned legal expert on the subject.

He said he and his ageing wife were held for hours by Canadian authorities on “national security” grounds as he traveled to Canada on Thursday to attend an international event related to the Israeli genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Falk, who is an international law expert from the United States, was held for questioning by security forces during an interrogation upon arrival in Toronto alongside his wife, Hilal Elver, also a senior legal scholar.

“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 said on Saturday in an interview from Ottawa, the Canadian capital. “It was my first experience of this sort – ever – in my life.”

“The security man asked us about our work on the Israeli regime forces genocide in Gaza, as well as on issue of genocide in general. [There was] nothing particularly aggressive about his questioning,” Falk said.

“It felt sort of random and disorganized,” he added.

Falk, however, concluded that the reason for the lengthy interrogation of the senior scholars, who had posed no clear security threat at the Toronto airport, was part of a global push to “punish those who endeavor to tell the truth about what is happening” in the world, particularly to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Falk was traveling to Ottawa to take part in the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility, which brought together international human rights and legal experts on Friday and Saturday to examine the Canadian government’s role in Israel’s two-year war on the Gaza Strip, which numerous rights groups agree amounts to genocide.

Zionist regime’s forces have martyred at least 69,187 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, and injured 170,703 others since October 2023.