17 February 2026<\/p>\n
GENEVA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The Coordination Committee of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council today condemned vicious attacks, rooted in disinformation, by several State Ministers against Francesca Albanese, the\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.<\/p>\n \u201cWe denounce actions by Ministers of certain States to rely on manufactured facts and criticise Ms Albanese for statements that she never made at the 17th Al Jazeera Forum,\u201d the Committee said.<\/p>\n The events follow an organised campaign against Albanese and the imposition of illegal sanctions against her last year with devastating consequences to her and her family. The Committee expressed concerns about an increasing trend of politically motivated and malicious attacks against independent human rights experts, UN officials and judges of international courts, who are pursuing accountability, becoming the new normal.<\/p>\n \u201cStates claiming to uphold human rights, justice and the rule of law should invest their time and energy in holding to account perpetrators of egregious human rights violations, rather than targeting those investigating and exposing international crimes in an objective way,\u201d the Committee said.<\/p>\n The Committee reminded States that the Special Rapporteur is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to \u201cinvestigate Israel\u2019s violations of the principles and bases of international law, international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War \u2026 in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of demanding Ms Albanese\u2019s resignation for performing her mandate in very challenging circumstances \u2013 including persistent intimidation, coordinated personal attacks and unlawful unilateral sanctions \u2013 these Government representatives should join forces to hold accountable, including before the International Criminal Court, leaders and officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza,\u201d the Committee said.<\/p>\n The Committee encourages all States to reflect on how they have contributed to lawlessness and world disorder by enabling, encouraging or defending the illegal actions of the Government of Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cStates must look in the mirror and undertake urgent course correction. States must choose to stand on the right side of history.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe stand in solidarity with Ms Albanese and with the people of Palestine who have been suffering unlawful occupation, apartheid and ongoing genocide,\u201d the Committee said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n To learn more about Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council and the Question of Palestine, click here to visit the dedicated webpage.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a0Coordination Committee<\/a>\u00a0is a body of six independent experts which coordinates and facilitates the work of special procedures as a whole. It is currently composed of\u00a0Surya Deva<\/a>, Chair, Special Rapporteur on the right to development;\u00a0Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito<\/a>, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination,\u00a0Siobh\u00e1n Mullally<\/a>, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children,\u00a0Tomoya Obokata<\/a>, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, and\u00a0Alexandra Xanthaki<\/a>, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights.<\/em><\/p>\n Special Rapporteurs\/Independent Experts\/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the\u00a0Special Procedures<\/a>\u00a0of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent from\u202fany government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR.<\/em><\/p>\n Country-specific observations and recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights Index\u00a0https:\/\/uhri.ohchr.org\/en\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 17 February 2026 GENEVA\u00a0\u2013 The Coordination Committee of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council today condemned vicious attacks, rooted in disinformation, by several State Ministers against Francesca Albanese, the\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. \u201cWe denounce actions by Ministers of certain States to rely […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[1602,6854],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[7013,1741,6885],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[],"class_list":["post-315305","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-source-human-rights-council","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territories-occupied-since-1967","document-subject-disinformation","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-human-rights-violations","entity-united-nations-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/315305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/315305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315331,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/315305\/revisions\/315331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=315305"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=315305"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=315305"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=315305"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=315305"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=315305"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=315305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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