UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese decries U.S. sanctions

The measures over her anti-Israel and anti-American actions have crippled her financially, she said.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Francesca Albanese bewailed Thursday the U.S. sanctions imposed on her in July over what American officials described as her persistent anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric and actions.

Her latest complaints surfaced on the podcast of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who has turned sharply against Israel during the nearly two-year war in Gaza triggered by the Hamas-led invasion in which nearly 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals — including American citizens — were killed.

“I am financially censored,” she told a sympathetic Carlson, “which means that all assets, bank accounts in the US … everything has been shut down.”

“I cannot open a bank account anywhere. I cannot have a credit card. I cannot receive payments or make payments. My health insurance has been suspended,” she said, adding that her American daughter “risks [committing] a felony for giving me a present.”

“It is abominable.”

She is also barred from entering the United States, a restriction she claims impairs her ability to function as the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on human rights in the so-called “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” because she cannot travel to the UN headquarters in New York to deliver her annual reports.

Those reports have included harsh – and roundly denied – accusations against Israel, including labeling it an apartheid state and charging the Israel Defense Forces with committing genocide and war crimes in Gaza, while critics say she has downplayed or ignored Palestinian terrorist violence.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio penalized Albanese under President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14203 that imposed sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“Albanese has directly engaged with the ICC in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries,” he said in a press statement at the time.

He condemned her “biased and malicious activities,” saying she has regularly “spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.”

“That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant,” Rubio said.

Albanese has argued that she cannot be sanctioned under the UN Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, and has demanded that the international body intervene to have the measures lifted.

According to UN Watch, although the UNHRC renewed Albanese’s three-year-mandate in April, the rapporteur does not enjoy UN immunity because the renewal was invalid.

The Geneva-based watchdog said the council violated its own rules, which require its president to present evidence of noncompliance with the rapporteur’s code of conduct and obligate the council to act accordingly.

In a letter sent immediately after the vote, UN Watch said that despite submitting “a 56-page dossier documenting [Albanese’s] sustained and egregious violations of that code — including breaches of impartiality, integrity, and restraint” the previous month, and despite formal objections filed by Israel, Hungary, and Argentina, the council proceeded with the reappointment, rendering it “null and void.”