Zackie Achmat's US detention prompts warning from former South African ambassador

Ebrahim Rasool, the former South African Ambassador to the US, has issued a warning to people of colour regarding their safety when travelling to the United States.

This caution comes in the wake of health and political activist Zackie Achmat's recent detention by US Customs and Border Protection for several hours upon his return from Canada.

Achmat, 63, was held by customs and border agents at Pearson Airport.

He was travelling to Cape Town with a connecting flight through Newark.

Achmat had received the inaugural Paul Farmer award for Global Health Equity, which was established in honour of the late Dr Paul Farmer, a physician, advocate, and global health icon.

While initially receiving the award last year, Achmat only arrived last week to accept it in person.

Speaking on his ordeal, Achmat said: “A very dumpy MAGA member, who will not be referred to by their gender, because they were really horrible, asked me whether I was carrying anything biological. I asked what they meant? (They said) ‘Biological, you know’.

“I'm like, ‘no, I don't know’. Is it my underpants, my dirty underpants?”

Achmat said that he was asked a series of successive questions about who he spoke to and where he stayed.

Despite his internal reservations about not sharing the information, he did inform them that he was in Montreal after being invited to give a talk.

Achmat explained that he was taken to an area where there were two other people sitting.

“I chatted to both of them, trying to calm them down as I was like, ‘What is this?’ But clearly, the most stressful thing for any human being is to go through immigration, and that's a known thing, especially for people who are refugees, asylum seekers, or immigrants.

“They face terror. I'm a lucky person,” Achmat said.

He added that he sat down, read his book after “a really nice man” re-questioned him.

Rasool said that people of colour from SA and even elsewhere are special targets for such treatment, whereas a white South African will enjoy special privileges and a great welcome.

“Someone like Zackie Achmat would, like Sami Hamdi, have an additional target on him given his history of anti-racist and social justice activism, which would have been surveilled through his social media,” Rasool said.

Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, Isaac Khambule said: “In terms of trying to be cautious, I think if you look at what ICE is currently doing in the US, then it shows you that those South Africans travelling to the US should definitely ensure that they have all their documents with them all the time, so that they can be able to prove as to why they're in the US.

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