This past weekend, international scholars and speakers invited to the Muslim Association of Canada’s (MAC) annual convention in Toronto reportedly faced extraordinary immigration scrutiny. MAC said many had their electronic travel authorisations delayed for months or cancelled shortly before departure, while others had visas revoked without notice. Several were reportedly interrogated for hours at Toronto Pearson Airport, denied water and refused a space to pray. MAC described the treatment as “deliberate and coordinated”.
Among those affected was former South African ambassador to the United States Ebrahim Rasool, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle who was himself expelled by the Trump administration earlier this year after publicly criticising the MAGA movement. Rasool later told me the Canadian questioning reminded him of apartheid-era interrogations, albeit in a far softer and less openly coercive form. British Muslim commentator Anas Altikriti reportedly spent 11 hours under questioning before ultimately abandoning efforts to enter Canada.
In each case, those targeted had been publicly critical of Israeli policy or involved in Palestine-related advocacy.
These incidents do not stand alone. Earlier this year, French Palestinian member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan was denied entry into Canada ahead of speaking engagements in Montreal because of her outspoken criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza. In November, former United Nations Special Rapporteur Richard Falk and his wife, Hilal Elver, were detained and interrogated for hours at Toronto Pearson Airport before attending the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility in Ottawa. Falk later said Canadian officials questioned him extensively about his work on Gaza, his criticism of Israeli policy and his participation in the tribunal. Officials reportedly suggested the couple posed a threat to Canadian national security. Falk later warned that the episode reflected “a climate of governmental insecurity” and an effort “to clamp down on dissident voices”.
At some point, such cases stop looking isolated.
They begin to reveal a political pattern.
When states become insecure about the moral and political consequences of their own alliances, they rarely begin by banning ideas outright. They begin more subtly. They delay visas. They intensify interrogations. They deny entry. They invoke “security concerns” without explanation. They create a climate in which dissent itself becomes suspicious.
That is increasingly what is happening in Canada to critics of Israel and advocates for Palestinian rights.
Canada likes to present itself internationally as a defender of multiculturalism, human rights and liberal democracy. But increasingly, Muslim scholars, Palestine advocates and critics of Israeli policy are encountering a different Canada at its borders: one where political viewpoints appear to trigger heightened scrutiny, where pro-Israel lobbying campaigns seem to shape policy and where criticism of Israel is increasingly treated as adjacent to extremism.
This did not emerge spontaneously.
For years, a network of pro-Israel advocacy organisations and lobbying groups has worked aggressively to marginalise Palestine solidarity activism in Canada. Organisations such as HonestReporting Canada, B’nai Brith Canada, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation and various aligned activists and media personalities routinely pressure universities, media outlets, public institutions and governments to cancel speakers, investigate activists and stigmatise criticism of Israel.
In the days leading up to the MAC convention, several of these groups and commentators publicly campaigned against invited speakers, urging venues and authorities to intervene. Similar campaigns preceded the denial of entry to Rima Hassan and the targeting of other Palestine solidarity events across the country.
To be clear, these groups absolutely have the right to advocate for positions they believe in. That is part of democratic life. Governments also have an obligation to prevent genuine hate speech, incitement to violence and legitimate security threats.
But that is precisely why what is happening now is so dangerous.
Because increasingly, the line between legitimate security concerns and ideological policing appears to be collapsing.
The issue is no longer merely whether certain individuals are controversial. The issue is whether state institutions are beginning to absorb and operationalise a political framework in which strong criticism of Israel, solidarity with Palestinians or independent Muslim scholarship become grounds for extraordinary scrutiny.
This is not unique to Canada.
Across the Western world, governments that present themselves as defenders of liberal democracy are increasingly adopting measures that would once have been condemned as overt political repression. In Germany, Palestine solidarity demonstrations have been banned or heavily restricted. In France, activists and organisations have faced raids and dissolution threats. In the US, universities, lawmakers and lobbying organisations have aggressively targeted students and academics critical of Israel. The weaponisation of immigration law, surveillance powers and institutional pressure against dissenting voices is becoming normalised across much of the West.
Canada is now moving dangerously in the same direction.
The irony is that the state’s response to the MAC convention revealed far more about governmental anxiety than about the convention itself.
I attended. What I encountered was not extremism or radicalisation. It was thousands of ordinary Canadian Muslims, many with young families, attending lectures on spirituality, parenting, mental health, civic engagement, charity and social responsibility. There were political discussions too, naturally. Gaza has become one of the defining moral issues of this generation. But the atmosphere was overwhelmingly reflective, thoughtful and community-oriented.
The online hysteria surrounding the event bore little resemblance to reality.
Ironically, the campaign against the convention appears to have backfired. The gathering was well attended. Several speakers addressed audiences virtually instead. If the objective was to suppress ideas, it only amplified them.
But the deeper damage is not measured by attendance numbers.
It is measured in the growing alienation many Muslims now feel towards institutions that claim to protect equal citizenship while increasingly treating Muslim political expression through a national security lens.
For many Muslims of my generation, this moment feels painfully familiar. In the years after 9/11, Muslim communities across North America experienced surveillance, infiltration, no-fly lists, security certificates, charity investigations and the normalisation of collective suspicion. Entire communities were taught that they belonged conditionally, provided they remained politically quiet and ideologically acceptable.
Canadian Muslims spent decades trying to rebuild trust after those years. Many now fear those same instincts are quietly returning, only this time under the language of combating extremism, protecting social cohesion or fighting anti-Semitism.
That last point is especially important.
Anti-Semitism is real. It is dangerous and must be confronted seriously wherever it appears. But increasingly, accusations of anti-Semitism are also being weaponised to suppress legitimate criticism of Israeli state violence, occupation and apartheid policies. The result is not greater safety for Jews or Palestinians. The result is a shrinking democratic space where criticism of a foreign state increasingly carries professional, institutional and even immigration consequences.
This should alarm everyone, not only Muslims or Palestine advocates.
History repeatedly teaches that extraordinary powers introduced against marginalised communities rarely remain confined to them. Once governments begin informally policing political thought at the border, the scope of acceptable dissent narrows for everyone.
Today the targets are Muslim scholars, antiwar voices and Palestine solidarity activists. Tomorrow it could be environmental organisers, Indigenous land defenders, anticorporate activists or critics of future wars and alliances.
Borders are supposed to protect public safety. They are not supposed to become ideological checkpoints.
Yet that is increasingly what Canada’s borders are becoming.
And perhaps the most painful part for many Canadian Muslims is the realisation that while politicians celebrate diversity publicly, many Muslims increasingly feel they are being told privately that full belonging comes with conditions: criticise carefully, dissent cautiously and never challenge powerful political interests too loudly.
That is not democratic pluralism.
It is conditional citizenship dressed up as national security.
The real issue here is not whether one agrees with every invited speaker at a Muslim convention or every argument made by Palestine advocates. The real issue is whether democratic societies can remain genuinely democratic once states begin treating dissenting political thought as a security threat.
Because once governments begin policing ideas at the border, they rarely stop there.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
