The vicous and sustained campaign mounted against Francesca Albanese, the UN 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 February 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 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.
By making Francesca, who receives frequent death threats, the lightening 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.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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