Amnesty Condemns US Sanctions on Rapporteur Exposing Israel’s Atrocities – World news

Amnesty International denounced the US sanctions imposed on Francesca Albanese as a “shameless and transparent attack on the fundamental principles of international justice.”

The move was announced by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who declared sanctions days after Albanese published a report documenting how Western corporations profit from Israel’s illegal occupation and genocidal policies in Gaza.

“Special Rapporteurs are not appointed to please governments or to be popular but to deliver their mandate,” Amnesty Secretary General Agnes Callamard said in a statement Wednesday.

“Francesca Albanese’s mandate is to advocate for human rights and international law, essential at a time when the very survival of Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip is at stake,” the statement said.

Callamard stressed that Albanese’s work is vital at a time when Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip face extermination.

She warned that the sanctions continued the Trump administration’s pattern of undermining international law by threatening and silencing critics of Israel’s apartheid system.

“They are the latest in a series of policies seeking to intimidate and silence those that dare speak out for Palestinians’ human rights,” Callamard added.

Amnesty urged all governments to reject the US decision and exert maximum pressure to reverse it.

“States must forcefully reject these disgraceful, vindictive sanctions and do everything in their power to block their effects,” the statement said.

UN Human Rights Council President Jurg Lauber also condemned the sanctions, calling them an act of retaliation against an independent expert.

“I regret the decision of the United States Government to impose sanctions on Ms. Francesca Albanese,” Lauber said Thursday, underlining the essential role of Special Rapporteurs in monitoring global human rights abuses.

He called on all UN member states to refrain from any form of intimidation or reprisal against UN mandate holders.

In his announcement, Rubio accused Albanese of launching “political and economic warfare” against the US and Israel by exposing corporations such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Palantir, which Albanese said enable the occupation through military hardware and surveillance technologies.

Washington has faced widespread condemnation for backing Israel’s campaign of collective punishment that since October 2023 has slaughtered over 57,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.