Francesca Albanese supports terrorism?!

On July 9th, 2025 the U.S. Department of State sanctioned Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. In Rubio’s announcement he accuses her of antisemitism and expressing support for terrorism. This couldn’t be further from the truth. These sanctions have made life quite difficult for her. She’s had to deal with her medical insurance company refusing to reimburse her. She’s had hotel reservations cancelled, because her name was on the reservation. Her medical insurance company refused to reimburse her, and she now can’t have a credit card. She mentions this in a YouTube short. All of this for simply doing her job and fighting for human rights in Palestine.

This seems to be a pattern of the U.S. trying to burden those who fight for human rights.  Angela Y. Davis reminds us in her book, “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” about how Nelson Mandela was labeled a “terrorist” by the United States, even after he was out of prison and president of South Africa. But, today we consider Mandela to be one of the greatest human rights activists in our time. I can’t help but foreshadow this current mislabeling of Albanese to some day be a told in stories about how the United States made a mistake.

It’s mind-boggling how easy it is for the U.S. government to bully those who share opposing ideas. Mostly because the ideas it doesn’t seem to like are ones regarding equity, and human rights. We live in a strange time.