Prominent legal scholar detained at Canadian border while on his way to a conference on Palestine

A prominent academic and former UN special rapporteur says he was detained by customs agents in Toronto while on his way to speak at a conference on human rights violations against Palestinians.

Richard Falk, a retired Princeton University professor who was a UN special rapporteur on human rights in occupied Palestine, was on his way to Ottawa to speak at the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility on Friday and Saturday.

Dubbed a “people’s tribunal,” the event was organized as a forum to analyze and document “Canada’s complicity in the genocide and dispossession of Palestinians, including over the last two years in Gaza,” says a news release from its organizers.

But upon arriving at customs at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Thursday with his wife, he says border