SPIA Event Featuring UN’s Francesca Albanese Draws Heated Debate

October 30, 2024 1 min read

Hope Perry ’24
Princeton Alumni Weekly

Excerpt: Princeton students and community members engaged in heated arguments with Francesca Albanese, an Italian human rights expert, during an event hosted by the School of Public and International Affairs on Tuesday.

Albanese was appointed to her position, United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in 2022. She has been criticized for attending a conference hosted by Hamas’ Council on International Relations in 2022 and was condemned by the United States, France, and Germany for a 2014 comment that resurfaced in 2022 in which she characterized the U.S. as “subjugated by the Jewish lobby,” playing into an antisemitic trope.

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