- Chris Hedges: Francesca Albanese and the Lonely Road of Defiance
- Chris Hedges: Francesca Albanese and the Lonely Road of Defiance - sashimi December 31, 2025, 5:48 am
Posted by sashimi
on December 31, 2025, 5:48 am
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30 Dec 2025 https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/francesca-albanese-and-the-lonely Lede: The U.N. special rapporteur is one of the most courageous crusaders against the genocide in Gaza. Because of this, she is blacklisted and treated as if she is a terrorist. ... Francesca is barred from entering the U.S. even to appear at the United Nations in New York City, to present one of her two annual reports. The other is delivered at the United Nations Office at Geneva. Francesca's assets in the U.S. have been frozen, including her bank account and her U.S. apartment. The sanctions cut her off from the international banking system, including blocking her use of credit cards. Her private medical insurance refuses to reimburse her medical expenses. Hotel rooms booked under her name have been cancelled. She can only operate using cash or by borrowing a bank card. Institutions, including U.S. universities, human rights groups, professors and NGOs, that once cooperated with Francesca, have severed ties, fearful of penalties established for any U.S. citizen who collaborates with her. She and her family receive frequent death threats. Israel and the U.S. have mounted a campaign to get her removed from her U.N post. Francesa is proof that when you stand steadfastly with the oppressed, you will be treated like the oppressed. She is unsure if her book, "When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine," which has been translated into English and is expected to be released in April next year, will be distributed in the U.S. "I'm a sanctioned person," she says ruefully. But she is not cowed. Her next salvo will be a report that documents the torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. While torture, she says, was "not widespread," before Oct. 7, it has now become ubiquitous. She is collecting testimonies of those released from Israeli detention. "It reminds me of the stories and testimonies I read from Argentina's dictatorship," Francesca tells me. "It's that bad. It's systemic torture against the same people. The same people are taken, raped and brought back, taken, raped and brought back." "Women?" I ask. "Both," she answers. "To have women tell you they have been raped, multiple times. They've been asked to masturbate soldiers. This is incredible," Francesca says. "For a woman to say that. Imagine what they have endured? There are people who have lost their words. They cannot talk. They cannot speak after what they've endured." Establishment media organizations, she says, not only dutifully parrot back Israeli lies, but routinely block reporting that reflects negatively on Israel. "In April, I reported the first cases of sexual harassment and rape that had taken place in January and February 2024," she says. "People didn't want to listen. The New York Times interviewed me for two hours. Two hours. They didn't write a line about it." "The Financial Times had - because of the relevance of the topic - an embargo'd version of 'From economy of occupation to economy of genocide,'" she says. "They didn't publish it. They didn't even publish a review, an article, days after the press conference. But they did publish a critique of my report. I had a meeting with them. I said, 'This is really depressing. Who are you? Are you paid for the work you do? Who are you loyal to, your readers?' I pushed them. They said, 'Well, we didn't find that it was up to our standards.'" ... The drift towards fascism in Europe and the United States, Francesca says, is intimately tied to the genocide, as is the emerging resistance. "There is a brewing anger and dissatisfaction with political leadership in Europe," she says. "There is also a fear that lingers in many countries because of the rise of the right. We've been there. There are people who have living memories of fascism in Europe. The scars of Nazi-fascism are still there, even the trauma. People cannot process what has happened and why it's happened. Palestine has shocked people. Italians in particular. Maybe because we are who we are in the sense that we cannot be silenced that easily, we cannot be scared as has happened to the Germans and the French. I was shocked in France. The fear and repression is incredible. It is not as bad as Germany, but it's much worse than it was two years ago. The minister of education in France cancelled an academic conference on Palestine at the Collège de France - the highest institution in France. The minister of education! And he bragged about it." Francesca says our only hope now is civil disobedience, embodied in actions such as strikes that disrupt commerce and government or the attempts by the flotillas to reach Gaza. Ctd ... |
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