Former UN special rapporteurs Richard Falk and Hilal Elver were detained and interrogated by Canadian authorities on Thursday while on their way to an event examining Canada’s role in the genocide in Gaza and continued abuses against Palestinians.

Falk, who turned 95 on the day he was detained, said that officials deemed he and his wife posed a “national security threat” to the country upon their arrival at an airport in Toronto. Falk was the UN special rapporteur for Palestinian human rights between 2008 and 2014 and Elver was the UN special rapporteur on the right to food from 2014 to 2020.

“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 told Al Jazeera on Sunday, from Ottawa. “It was my fir

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