{"id":6659,"date":"2026-05-14T12:35:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/federal-judge-blocks-us-sanctions-against-un-rapporteur-francesca-albanese\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T12:35:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:35:21","slug":"federal-judge-blocks-us-sanctions-against-un-rapporteur-francesca-albanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/federal-judge-blocks-us-sanctions-against-un-rapporteur-francesca-albanese\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge blocks US sanctions against UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><em>US sanctions imposed on UN expert Francesca Albanese by the Trump administration have been temporarily \u2060blocked by a judge.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div aria-live=\"polite\" aria-atomic=\"true\">\n<p>A federal judge has temporarily \u2060blocked United States sanctions against Francesca Albanese, a United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n<p>UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sanctioned in July 2025 after she publicly criticised Washington\u2019s policy on Israel\u2019s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n<section>\n<h2>Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n<p><span>list of 3 items<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>list 1 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/2\/26\/family-of-un-rapporteur-albanese-sues-trump-administration-over-sanctions\">Family of UN rapporteur Albanese sues Trump administration over sanctions<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 2 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/3\/21\/israel-systematically-torturing-palestinians-in-custody-says-un-expert\">Israel systematically torturing Palestinians in custody, says UN expert<\/a><\/li>\n<li><span>list 3 of 3<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/3\/23\/un-expert-says-world-has-given-israel-licence-to-torture-palestinians\">UN expert says world has given Israel \u2018licence to torture Palestinians\u2019<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n<p>Albanese\u2019s husband and daughter <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/2\/26\/family-of-un-rapporteur-albanese-sues-trump-administration-over-sanctions\">filed a lawsuit<\/a> in February against the Trump administration over the sanctions. It argued that the sanctions were an effort to punish Albanese for bringing attention to Israel\u2019s rights abuses against Palestinians.<\/p>\n<p>In his court order on Wednesday, US \u2060District Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction against the sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>He found that the Trump administration sought to regulate \u200cher speech because of the \u201cidea or message expressed\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlbanese has done nothing more than speak,\u201d judge Leon wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov\/cgi-bin\/show_public_doc?2026cv0688-48\">in his memorandum opinion<\/a>. \u201cIt is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC\u2019s actions \u2013 they are nothing more than her opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Albanese, who said the US sanctions were \u201ccalculated to weaken my mission\u201d when they were first imposed, celebrated the ruling on social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThanks to my daughter and my husband for stepping up to defend me, and everyone who has helped so far,\u201d Albanese said in a statement on X.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTogether we are One.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since 2022, Albanese, a legal scholar, has served as the special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, where she monitors human rights abuses against Palestinians. The UN Human Rights Council selected her for the position.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration sanctioned her last July, calling her \u201cunfit\u201d for her role and accusing her of \u201cbiased and malicious activities\u201d against the US and its ally, Israel. Albanese had also recommended that the International Criminal Court (ICC) pursue war crimes prosecutions against Israeli and US nationals.<\/p>\n<p>The sanctions barred the Italian lawyer and human rights expert from entering the US, using US banks and payment systems, and prevented anyone else in the US from doing business with her.<\/p>\n<p>Albanese\u2019s husband and her daughter, a US citizen, claimed in the lawsuit that the US \u2060sanctions were \u201ceffectively debanking her and making it nearly impossible to meet the needs of her daily life\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US sanctions imposed on UN expert Francesca Albanese by the Trump administration have been temporarily \u2060blocked by a judge. A federal judge has temporarily \u2060blocked United States sanctions against Francesca Albanese, a United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territory. UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sanctioned in July 2025 after she &#8230; <a title=\"Federal judge blocks US sanctions against UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/federal-judge-blocks-us-sanctions-against-un-rapporteur-francesca-albanese\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Federal judge blocks US sanctions against UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}