As Israel’s genocide in Gaza grinds on, the persecution of Albanese indicates the escalating lawlessness of the West.
Francesca Albanese in Bogotá, Colombia, July 2025. (Office of the President of Colombia / Flickr / Public Domain)
The vicious and sustained campaign mounted against Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, by Israel and the U.S. now includes the German, Italian, French, Austrian and Czech foreign ministers demanding her resignation.
This campaign is part of an effort by industrial nations to at once sustain the genocide in Gaza — nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the sham ceasefire took effect — and silence all those who demand the international community abide by the rule of law.
The latest assault on Francesca, part of a concerted effort to discredit international bodies such as the U.N., is based on a deliberately truncated video of a talk Francesca gave in Doha on Feb. 7 that distorts and misconstrues her words. But truth, of course, is irrelevant.
The goal is to silence her and all who stand up for Palestinian rights.
Francesca was placed by the Trump administration on the Office of Foreign Assets Control list of the U.S. Treasury Department — normally used to sanction those accused of money laundering or being involved with terrorist organizations — six days after the release of her report, “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide,” which documented the global corporations that make billions of dollars from the genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestinians.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control list — weaponized by the Trump administration to persecute Francesca and in violation of the diplomatic immunity granted to U.N. officials — bans her from entering the U.S.
It prohibits any financial institution from having her as a client. A bank that engages in financial transactions with Francesca is banned from operating in dollars, faces multimillion-dollar fines and is blocked from international payment systems.
This has cut her off from global banking, leaving her unable to use credit cards or book a hotel in her name. Her assets in the U.S. are frozen. It has seen her medical insurance refuse to reimburse her for medical expenses.
It has resulted in institutions, including U.S. universities, human rights groups and NGOs that once collaborated with her severing ties, fearing onerous U.S. penalties.
The sanctions followed those imposed in February and June of last year on The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Khan along with two judges for issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, providing the Security Council with a briefing on Jan. 27, 2025. (UN Photo/Loey Felipe)
By making Francesca, who receives frequent death threats, the lightning rod, these governments seek to deflect attention from the ongoing slaughter and humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
They seek to mask Israel’s system of apartheid and unlawful occupation of historic Palestine. They seek to hide, most of all, their complicity with their continuing weapons shipments that fuel Israel’s genocide.
The pace of the genocide has slowed, but it has not stopped. Israel has seized 60 percent of Gaza and blocks most humanitarian aid, including fuel, food and medicine.
At the same time, Israel is accelerating its seizure of the occupied West Bank, where more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes since October 2023.
The campaign against Francesca presages a terrifying world where Western industrial nations exploit and prey upon the weak, where the law is whatever powerful nations say it is, where those who dare to speak the truth and stand up for the rule of law are relentlessly persecuted, where genocide is another tool in the arsenal to crush the aspirations and rights of the vulnerable.
This is a fight we must win. If we lose, if we let voices like Francesca’s be silenced, we will usher in an age of blood and terror.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”
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Albanese is one of the very few who justify the existence of the UN.
Merz of Germany has demanded an end to anonymity for people using social media. What we really need is an end to anonymity for those who control our politicians. Bring back democracy.
Chris, any chance you could interview this woman of
truth and courage so we CN viewers could hear her
describe what’s she’s going through?
He already did.
hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/27/the-chris-hedges-report-francesca-albanese-on-an-economy-of-genocide/
To win, the truly responsible individuals (especially also those from behind the scenes) must be clearly identified, exposed and held accountable.
It is hard to see any other way.
And the more they attack her, the more they tacitly admit their guilt and complicity in the genocide.
If they weren’t guilty and complicit, they could merely shrug their shoulders and ignore her remarks.
Full marks to Francesca. Her activities have been creditable in making people aware of the extent of genocidal crimes against the Palestine people.
May she continue in her role. Giving in by having her removed from her important role would be the same as saying ‘here we go again’. Yet another act orchestrated by the two most criminal countries in the world with mass murder the order of the day.
Sadly, Francesca works for an organisation that had much more merit in decades past before the veto power given to the USA was overused on every possible occasion that required action against the genocidal Israelis and the supporting vassal state, the USA in its supply of weaponry and finance, year after year making it equal in Israel’s crimes against humanity.
Te UN today is a toothless organisation. It should be either closed down or moved to Geneva, with the removal of the veto powers, and with one country / one vote.
Right now it is a USA plaything, adding daily to the instability in the world. As for Francesca, she is a most worthy Ambassador for humanity, deserving of the thanks of the world.
The big guys aiming to grind down Albanese are a bunch of chicken- s——ts doing their dirty work like the arrogant moral free Epstein global Fraternity. All absent anything remotely called integrity, dignity, substance. Albanese is their opposite. And they hate her for it.
No puedo imaginar un mundo donde se permita CANCELAR a una Persona como Franchesca.
Sí, debemos ganar está guerra y no dejar a nadie atrás.