Sanctioned for speaking the truth: The West’s war on Francesca Albanese

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, represents a systemic and existential threat to what is called the narrative of Western civilization and the myth of superiority that Westerners promote on a daily basis.

According to CounterPunch, the threats, sanctions, and pressure exerted against Albanese by the West—led by the United States—are not accidental; they constitute a reaction of panic, because the UN Special Rapporteur is wielding the technical and irrefutable weapon of international law against a propaganda machine built on lies.

Fear of this reality has manifested itself in attacks that have turned into a kind of medieval hysteria—not only by the Zionist regime, but by a Western alliance including the United States and most EU member states, all of which are deeply complicit in the ongoing genocide.

The Zionist regime’s ambassador to the United Nations, in a display that was ostensibly diplomatic, abandoned all pretense of legal argument to resort to outright insult.

The context of this attack reveals the scale of the conspiracy against her: Albanese, who had been barred from entering the United States due to Washington’s alleged sanctions, was forced to present her latest report, titled “The Genocide of Gaza: A Collective Crime,” remotely from South Africa, where she had just delivered the prestigious annual Nelson Mandela Lecture and was met with minutes of standing ovation from the audience.

Against this backdrop, Danon pointed at Albanese’s image and repeatedly shouted: “You are a witch; your reports are pure witchcraft.”

Danon’s hysterical outbursts were a deliberate attempt to distort reality. A well-known Italian historian has noted in one of his works that the label “witch” is never accidental, emphasizing that it is a political tool used by dying power structures to punish women who challenge the capitalist order.

As he recalls, the witch hunts were historically a “war against women,” launched to destroy those who resisted the enclosure of common lands and the imposition of despotism. Albanese is the modern target of this war, because she resists the enclosure of Palestine and the despotism of impunity.

At the same time, the heavy artillery of the U.S. government has been deployed to silence Albanese. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading this attack and has relentlessly called for her removal.

The U.S. Secretary of State has openly attacked the integrity of the Special Rapporteur and, in a letter to the UN Secretary-General, claimed that Albanese’s “antisemitic remarks” and “overt bias” render her unfit for service, calling on the United Nations to dismiss her immediately.

These political attacks have turned into a campaign of character assassination and economic suffocation. The meaningless sanctions imposed on Albanese have created serious obstacles for her access to insurance coverage and bank accounts.

Beyond the financial war, the threats to Albanese’s physical safety are severe. She and her family have repeatedly received death threats. Moreover, the UN Special Rapporteur has been physically barred from entering the very territory she is mandated to monitor—the occupied Palestinian territories—and she remains banned from entering the United States.

Despite all these unprecedented acts of harassment against a senior UN official, neither the Italian government nor the European Union has taken any action to support Albanese or to call for the lifting of these sanctions.

The reason for the Italian government’s inaction in supporting this high-ranking UN official from its own country lies in the fact that Giorgia Meloni is in power as prime minister. Meloni’s government, in its support for the crimes of the Zionist regime, has effectively criminalized criticism of those crimes.

The media narrative against Albanese in Italy is also controlled by the GEDI Group, owned by John Elkann of the Agnelli family. Elkann, a Zionist and a business partner deeply intertwined with the interests of the Zionist regime, uses his media empire to shield the occupation from scrutiny.

It is no coincidence that Maurizio Molinari, during his tenure as editor of both La Repubblica and La Stampa, enforced a rigid editorial line that portrayed Palestinian resistance as illegitimate and whitewashed the crimes of the Zionist regime.

This diplomatic and media war is unfolding against the backdrop of a massive movement in Italy that has inspired critics of the Zionist regime’s crimes across the world. While the Meloni government remains fully complicit in the genocide led by the United States and the Zionist regime, and continues to provide diplomatic cover and weapons through the defense giant Leonardo, the people have risen in opposition.

Albanese remains the ultimate target of sanctions, threats, and pressure because she is a mirror exposing Western hypocrisy. With her data and documentation, the UN Special Rapporteur shows that the European Union and the United States are active supporters of apartheid and genocide.

Albanese’s linguistic deconstruction dismantles the deceptive vocabulary of Western media used to whitewash and justify the Zionist regime; by using terms such as settler colonialism, apartheid, and forced displacement, she neutralizes media propaganda against Palestinians.

By breaking consensus, the UN Special Rapporteur disrupts the existing order. General strikes, port blockades, and global solidarity—demonstrated through actions such as the Global Sumoud Flotilla within the framework of international law—show that these movements stand on the side of justice.

Francesca Albanese represents the truth of international law in the face of the ruthless power of the Western narrative about the Zionist regime and its occupation of Palestine. She exposes the genocidal and occupation policies of the Zionist regime and the complicity of many Western countries—an ultimate negation of the so-called Western civilization