Canadian border officials have blocked a young Chicago radio journalist from entering the country because he was planning to spend a week documenting protests around the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. Martin Macias is a freelance reporter who was active in Chicago’s campaign against the 2016 Olympic bid. Macias told the Vancouver Media Co-op that Canadian border officials repeatedly questioned him about the upcoming anti-Olympic conference organized by the Olympic Resistance Network.

Martin Macias: “They wanted to know about the conference. They wanted to know about any kind of protest that I knew about. They wanted me to tell them about the organizers of the conference and what their numbers, phone numbers, were. They asked me why I was there, and I tried to establish that I was there as a radio journalist to talk to some people from the conference, residents of Vancouver who are outspoken about the Games or against the Games.”

Martin Macias is not the first American to be stopped at the Canadian border and questioned about the Olympics. In November, two of my colleagues and I were detained at the border by Canadian authorities while I was on my way to speak at the Vancouver Public Library. The guards searched our car, papers and laptop computers, and questioned me about whether I was going to speak about the Olympics. See related story