Gay porn star miffed over Israeli airport strip search
Cuban Ibrahim Moreno, who was in Tel Aviv for a club performance, claims he was mistreated due to his Muslim-sounding name
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
A Cuban gay porn star complained Monday over his rough treatment at the hands of Israeli airport officials, who, he claimed, interrogated him for hours and gave him a strip search, all because of his Muslim-sounding name.
Ibrahim Moreno arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport on Friday to perform at a Tel Aviv club. Although he later described his stay in Israel as “great,” he was far less impressed with his experiences when he arrived and left the country.
In a post to his Facebook page Monday, Moreno, who is Christian, said it had all been “a nightmare.”
“Finally at home after a rather dreadful weekend,” he wrote. “I never thought traveling to another country would make me feel like shit.”
Getting through security to enter the country took him two and half hours, during which he was questioned three times, Moreno said.
“Believed the worst would have happened, but no… it was only a sign of what would come later,” he wrote, recalling his experiences at the airport as he tried to board a flight back to France. According to Moreno, he was singled out because of his first name “Ibrahim.”
“Today at the Tel Aviv airport back home I have been humiliated, treated me like a terrorist and simply because my name is IBRAHIM, why can not I have a name of Arab origin? I’m GAY, I’m not a MUSLIM, I don’t speak any Arabic language, but if I carry a cross that allows me to be judged and humiliated,” he wrote.
Moreno said he was interviewed four times by security personnel, “not like any other, but like a weirdo” and that his suitcase was emptied out, his personal hygiene items were thrown away, and then he was forced to undress.
“I could only cry of the impotence and the rage,” he lamented, and added that he nearly missed his flight.
An Israel Airports Authority statement carried by the Ynet news site said that security checks at Ben Gurion are “carried out on all travelers leaving the country regardless of their identity, nationality, etc, and in the procedures laid out by the authorized officials.
“Items that are prohibited on flights in hand luggage are confiscated as is the norm all over the world,” the IAA said.
Moreno works for the New York-based gay porn production company Lucas Entertainment, started by the Russian-Israeli-American porn start Michael Lucas, an avid Zionist.
In 2009 Lucas produced the first ever all-Israeli, all-Jewish gay porn movie on location in Israel.
