Francesca Albanese: "An investigation is needed into Greece's role in the assault on the Flotilla"

BarcelonaThe Italian Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has called this Friday from Barcelona for an investigation into the role of the Greek authorities in the Israeli assault on the Global Sumud Flotilla last week. "How is it possible that the Greek authorities, instead of intervening to prevent Israel from committing a crime, participated in the operation? They picked up all participants except two," she said, referring to Palestinian-Catalan Saif Abukeshek and Brazilian Thiago Ávila, who are detained and prosecuted in Israel and who have reported torture through their lawyers.

"I am very concerned about my colleagues Saif and Thiago, as well as the 9,500 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails. That Israel kidnaps people a few miles from the coast of Greece, far from Israeli shores, is extremely problematic, and constitutes an escalation. It should have generated a strong response from all European countries," she demanded. And she warned that "Israel will act with more force the more impunity it is given." Albanese is in Barcelona to present her book When the World Sleeps (Tigre de Paper) and the documentary Disunited Nations.

The Flotilla was intercepted by two Israeli vessels on the night of April 30, resulting in 171 activists captured and 22 vessels disabled by Israeli soldiers. The boats were boarded one by one and the activists were taken at gunpoint to a prison ship 1,100 kilometers from the coast of Gaza, in international waters and a few miles from Greek waters. The activists were handed over to the Greek coast guard after 40 hours, during which they claim to have suffered abuse and torture. Abukeshek and Ávila, unlike the rest, were transferred to an Israeli prison. For a week they have been in an Israeli detention center, on hunger strike and, in the case of the Palestinian-Catalan, also on thirst strike, awaiting Israel to file formal charges against them, while the Israeli government has already accused them of being terrorists without evidence.

Albanese has highlighted the media and political silence surrounding Palestine. "We cannot stop talking about Palestine: the genocide has not stopped, it continues in another way. In Gaza, and also in the West Bank, where the situation is very complicated, where some Israeli officials are talking about pogroms," he recalled. And he called for international pressure, because "Israel will not stop until they are forced to." The UN rapporteur denounces in this regard that the EU's association agreement with Israel is maintained, despite the fact that the Spanish government and other member states have asked for it to be suspended. "The agreement should be invalidated, because Israel is accused of genocide, and all commercial relations between Europe and Israel should be cut off.

Sanctioned by the United States

The rapporteur thanked that on Thursday the Spanish government requested by letter to the EU that the sanctions imposed on her and on the judges of the International Criminal Court who have prosecuted the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for crimes against humanity, not be applied to her in European territory. The impact on her life has been direct, to the point of having her bank accounts blocked. "I am financially dependent on my family, I have less economic independence than when I was 12 years old," she admitted. Albanese acknowledged that Spain has taken an initiative that not even her country, Italy, has wanted to assume.

"The problem is not me, it is what I do; it is not what I say, but what I see," she said. She also added that the persecution she has suffered is for having legally denounced and documented the violations of international law committed by Israel. Furthermore, she highlighted that her case is not unique and that there are also repressed activists in Europe. "The fact that fundamental rights of those who oppose genocide are repressed in Europe today, that they are treated as terrorists and anti-Semites, is the measure of freedom in our so-called democracies".

Albanese was critical of the media for the silence on what is happening in Palestine. She also admitted that "the UN has been part of the problem and not the solution, because instead of seeking a political solution based on international law, it has treated Palestine as if it were a humanitarian crisis: the dilemma is accountability or barbarism". And she pointed out that the cause of the UN's paralysis is that "it is useless to those who make decisions, not only the US, but those at headquarters: financial, technological, media, and arms power". "It is these predatory elites, necropolitics, people who profit from the death of people, including children," she said, and therefore assured that "the solution will not come from the UN but must come from the citizens".