A McGill Islamic Studies student experiences American Islamophobia firsthand

Interview with Pascal Abidor

by Carla Green

When Pascal Abidor reached the US-Canadian border on May 1st, 2010, he was expecting the standard two-hour wait on the train while the border officials move through the cars and check passports.  What he wasn't expecting was to be pulled off the train, handcuffed and detained for hours, and have his electronics searched.  As Pascal explains, the agents decided to subject him to this treatment after they learned that he was a graduate student in Islamic Studies at McGill, and that he had been to certain parts of the Middle East in correlation with his research.

He speaks about his experience at the border that day and ever since, as well as his perspective on how it reflects on American attitudes towards terrorism and towards Islam, as well as about his lawsuit with the ACLU against the Department of Homeland Security, Abidor v. Napolitano, regarding the legality of the fact that border searches of electronics are held to the same standard as all other border searches.

This interview originally aired on CKUT's The Morning After on Tuesday, April 17th, at 7h.

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