Palestine | US imposes sanctions against UN expert Francesca Albanese

Geneva. The United Nations has called on the United States to lift its sanctions against the UN rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese. Washington must immediately reverse the sanctions, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Thursday. Furthermore, the "attacks and threats" against officials appointed by the UN or the International Criminal Court (ICC) must end.

Albanese herself said the sanctions against her were aimed at weakening her "mission" as Special Rapporteur. "I will continue to do what I have to do," the Italian announced. This will "naturally be challenging," she said during a visit to the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, adding: "I'm putting everything I have on the line for this."

The US announced the sanctions against Albanese on Wednesday. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified the sanctions by saying that Albanese was waging a "campaign of political and economic warfare" against the United States and Israel. The exact scope of the US sanctions remained unclear at first.

The United States accuses Francesca Albanese of bias and anti-Semitism, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She contacted the International Criminal Court to investigate or arrest US or Israeli nationals without informing either country.

In connection with the sanctions, the State Department referred to a February executive order issued by US President Donald Trump against members of the International Criminal Court. This order allows for the freezing of assets in the US of those affected and the prevention of these individuals and their family members from entering the United States.

The US was reacting, among other things, to a report Albanese presented in Geneva last week. In it, she accused 48 international companies of profiting first from Israel's "illegal occupation and apartheid" in the Palestinian territories and now from the "genocide" in the Gaza Strip. She named Microsoft and the travel platform Booking.com, among others.

She called on multinational companies to end their business relations with Israel if they did not want to be complicit in war crimes in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, and spoke of an "economy of genocide."

Albanese has been the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories since May 2022. She was appointed by the Human Rights Council, headquartered in Geneva. In this capacity, she does not speak for the United Nations itself. Agencies/nd