SAEDNEWS: American Emeritus Professor of Law described imposition of sanctions on United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca P. Albanese as an attack on U.S. Constitution.
Professor Charles Simmons, Emeritus Professor of Human Rights at Marygrove College and the Emeritus Professor of Law and Journalism at Eastern Michigan University has termed the imposition of sanctions on United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca P. Albanese as an attack on U.S. Constitution.
According to SAEDNEWS, Speaking in an exclusive interview, Simmons said: “I see this as an attack on the United Nations as a whole, and that represents, you're talking about 192 members, at least, of countries around the world that subscribe and believe in the international law and the United States was one of the founding countries of the United Nations. And still, it totally disrespects the United Nations today. And it's also an attack on the United States Constitution itself, and total disrespect.”
The Trump administration announced on July 9 that it was issuing sanctions against Albanese, the latest effort by the United States to punish critics of Israel's 21-month war in Gaza.
The State Department's decision to impose sanctions on the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza follows an unsuccessful US pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post.
Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer, has been vocal about what she has described as the "genocide" by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.
The full text of Simmons’ interview is as follows:
Q: What is your opinion about the U.S. sanctions against Francesca Albanese? Do you consider this action compatible with human rights principles and freedom of expression?
A: Definitely not. I see this as an attack on the United Nations as a whole, and that represents, you're talking about 192 members, at least, of countries around the world that subscribe and believe in the international law and the United States was one of the founding countries of the United Nations. And still, it totally disrespects the United Nations today. And it's also an attack on the United States Constitution itself, and total disrespect. And it does not begin with Trump, but Trump has made it worse and speed it up this process of oppression and censorship. So, the censorship of people speaking out about genocide is extremely important. And my hat is off to the lady who spoke up. And this woman is an employee. She's not even an employee of the United Nations. She's a volunteer. That's a human being who volunteered to speak the truth about what everybody is witnessing every day for over almost two years now, the genocide that's taking place, children being murdered before our eyes, children being denied food. And still, people are celebrating in some places. People are celebrating this human suffering. It is overwhelmingly... I don't think we even have a word for it in the English language, the horror that this is causing.
And the people of the world are standing up against this genocide, not only in Palestine, but the horrors that are taking place. The US is bombing Somalia. We have the West, all that it has done to exploit and oppressed the peoples of the world And so it's beyond violations of law. It's even beyond the violation of human rights. We're talking about some type of psychosis that exists among the leadership in the United States and the West that can allow this genocide and encourage it, support it, and even celebrate it. So, we're talking about some major anti-human conduct, and I can't think of a better word.
Q: Albanese believes the Israeli regime of genocide. In your view, is such an accusation legally examinable and provable under international law?
A: Definitely. We just had the international court, all the prosecutors were involved in that said, we have a genocidal situation. You had the best legal minds in the world who agreed that this was genocide. And as I was saying, this was way beyond genocide. We have no words to describe this type of horror. And the fact that the US was one of the signatories to the United Nations, to the Human Rights Declaration, and all of these laws that it now totally disrespects. So, it's not even a question of law anymore. We've gone way beyond that. This is something that the planet cannot tolerate. And we need to really be thinking about ourselves as every individual, just like this woman who stood up and is getting sanctioned. They want to sanction her. But we all have to be like her and just be honest. We have to be brutally honest about what's going on in the world and develop an understanding about the connections between the genocide that's taking place in Gaza and the horrors that are taking place in other parts of the world, and how that affects all of our countries, all of our people.
We are all suffering as a result. This violence that it is encouraging. The planet has become a military camp now. And the only solution that the leadership in the United States sees to a problem in the world is simply violence. If we don't agree with somebody, then we bomb them. We send drones. We try to overthrow the government. This is something that the individuals of the world are going to have to confront and stand up. And we're going to have to be very honest today in a way that our governments are not being honest, but we as individuals must be. Amilcar Cabral, who was the leader of the revolution in Guinea-Bissau, said, we have to be brutally honest. We can't lie to the people and tell no lies to the people and claim no easy victories. Most of our governments in the West are lying to our people. So some people really don't know the facts about what's happening. But we look at it on television every day and see children being shot down, reporters, hundreds of reporters being murdered intentionally to prevent the world from finding out the truth about what's happening in our various countries.
But it's up to us now. We can't rely on these governments, and people have to get in the streets and protest, and we have to organize better globally and build unity and alliances with other people around the world who believe in justice and peace.
Q: Considering that the U.S. is not a member of the UN Human Rights Council, to what extent can it interfere in the UN’s human rights processes, and how legitimate are these interventions?
A: The US leadership does not believe in human rights at all. I mean, we have to be very clear about that. And it didn't just start We have the United States leadership has not believed in human rights. And so many of African-Americans have been assassinated and penalized in various ways, discriminated against for speaking out about injustice. Martin Luther King was killed after he spoke out about injustice, the war in Vietnam. Malcolm X was gunned down, speaking truth to power. And we've had a whole history of African-Americans in North America, throughout the Americas, who's speaking about injustice. Ida B. Wells, a century ago, Paul Robeson and Aslanda Robeson, Dr. Duvoyce. And so, we were involved at the beginning of the establishment of the United the nations because we saw it as a solution to world wars that were taking place. Over 20 million people got killed in Russia. Millions of people died in the first and second World War, and we wanted to prevent that again. Now we're back to square one. And so, because the leadership does not take human rights seriously and celebrates the suffering, then the people have to stand up. That's where we are.
so the people in the United States, the workers, the trade unions here must unite with the trade unions in Iran and Iraq, and Cuba, and Brazil, and China. It's a people's struggle now, globally.
And I should say the young people in Africa are standing up and demanding self-reliance. And so the people who are speaking out for self-reliance, They are being put in prison. But the people have to stand up for all of these fighters for justice.
Q: Do you think the political and economic pressures exerted by the U.S. on human rights investigators like Albanese amount to intimidation and restriction of independent investigations?
A: Certainly. It has a chilling. We call it a chilling effect. It does. It frightens people to know that if they speak out, they're going to be penalized in some way. But that's where we are. We have no choice. you mentioned the media. The corporate media, the big media in the United States and throughout the West, are owned by big corporations. They're owned by billionaires. we really can't expect honesty and truth to come out from the corporate media. Now, there are good journalists, many good journalists, but they do not control the media. The people who own the media are the ones to control it. That's the Wall Street, basically. So, we have to listen to and watch independent media, or at least alternative media, instead of this corporate media, because we can't find truth there. And so, the media is being censored, and the universities are being censored, libraries are being shut down, law firms are being attacked. I mean, even college presidents are being attacked, and education in general is under attack. So, we have to be very clear about that. The billionaires do not want us to know the truth about what's happening in the world because they fear it will cause changes and make them lose money, and they'll lose cheap labor.
They'll lose their slaves. So, the censorship is major, and I'm over 80, and I haven't seen this type of censorship in the United States before, even though I saw it during World War II, during the McCarthy era. But it's a new level of hypocrisy, a new level of lying to the people, and a new level of censorship. So, we have to be very clear this is not democracy. What we have is hypocrisy, and we need to start calling these countries that hypocrites. And there's no truth in the leadership whatsoever.
Q: I would like you, if you don't mind, to elaborate more on the fact that you said you have never experienced such a censorship in the US ever before. How is it different? What do you think is going on?
A: Well, there has been an increase at least over the past 20 years, of the ownership of the media. I would say 30 years ago, probably, they were hundreds of organizations or individuals that owned newspapers. In most cities here, we used to have two or three daily newspapers. Now we only have maybe one paper in a city, and it's owned by a billionaire probably. So, the ownership has changed radically.
Now another thing that is different that I see is that the political leadership, is just more corrupt and in and misinformed, and they have become sort of professional politicians. It's a job. it has no moral bearing whatsoever.
So, people do not feel compelled to represent the interest of the people who sent them to the legislature or to the White House or wherever. The politicians just do whatever they feel like, and they're getting paid more and more by the big corporations.
We know the politicians in general are not speaking for us, too often. They are speaking for the people who are paying them, these rich these billionaires and millionaires who are paying them off, politically or in the media. And it's a devastation, on the on the level that has not been that has not been existed for a while.
Now it did exist prior to the 1960s, when the masses, start attacking and fighting for democracy in a new way.
Before that period, I mean, we had lynching in The United States for and people who spoke out, the any, suspicion that you're speaking out or thinking about justice, you could get killed in this country.
And so we're going back. We're moving back to that period right now when Trump talks about the making America great again, we’re talking about going back to something like fascism that we that I have experienced in my youth.
So those are the types of changes. I remember, during the period of lynching in 1940s, I was born in 1941. So, there was lynching of black people, men and women. And there would be crowds of white people who would come out and stand around and celebrate the lynching. They were watching people getting burned to death.
And even before that, throughout American history, there have been these massacres of black people, massacres of Native Americans, and the white settler class would just come and celebrate. And so, this is a return to those days and those values. Keep in mind, those values didn't change over the years, for many people.
Now among young people, there's a lot of young people today in The US and abroad who are fighting for justice and who are not blinded by the values of racism and colonialism as their parents have been.
But it's got it's a it requires a major struggle now for us to build unity among people who believe in justice across the planet, and we need to think about ourselves today as citizens of the world.
We are citizens of this planet, and we have a responsibility to fight for the rights of every human being and every living thing on this planet.
Q: What do you think led people of America to vote for Trump?
A: It's a very complex, issue. I don't know how I can do it in a short time, it takes an hour to talk about that.
I would say the racism is a factor in this in this country in any type of national decision. Racism has been a continuous issue and has not been resolved.
Also, the class issue. Many working class people who belong to the trade units, for example, have not voted in their particular interest, and that's been a problem throughout American history.
Because of the racism in this country, many, people who are like, poor white people, for example, too often believe that they are still better than, people of color.
And so they still look down on people of color and believe that no matter how bad their situation is, they are still better than black people or brown people. So, the politicians appeal to that racism, that ancient racism that we have. And so, they will generally go along with a white male figure who is offering them a better life.
Now in in spite of the fact that he's been a liar consistently I mean, all of his adult life that I know of, he's been a liar and a crook. I mean, he's still a liar and a crook, but people thought that they were going to get peace because he talked about making peace for one. And, he talked about taking them back to a better time. So a lot of people fell for the fell for the trick.
Just because people become educated in The United States and the West, we still are educated, with racism. We're educated with, believing in the, the falsity that rich people know better than poor people.
There is so much mythology in the US history, that people have swallowed because that's what we get in our school system. You know, we get mythologies about our history. You get mythologies in the media. And so we are taught now to just accept sound bites in the news, slogans, and people many people are not reading anymore.
And so there's a lot that contributes to sort of dumbing down of The US society, but it's purposely it's done to maintain the power of the rich people.
And, you know, Martin Luther King, said there were three things that The United States had to, overcome in order for us to have peace. We had to get over the racism. We had to get over this capitalist greed, and we have to get over this militarism. And he made this statement, back in the, in the fifties and sixties.
And I would say that the situation here has gotten worse. With America has become more and more greedy, more and more militaristic, and more racist.
Q: Professor, what do you think about the, future of the Israeli war on Gaza?
Do you think that The US would agree, actually with the elimination of Gaza?
Or do you think, another question is about the, Israeli attack on Iran.
As you know, there has there has already been an attack, and, there are threats of initiating another war against Iran too.
Do you think US will be involved?
A: Well, who makes those decisions here?
It's not, the people who are making those decisions.
There are some certain political leaders, many of whom are accepting money from the armaments industry, from the people who benefit from warfare, and from the Zionist, lobby, that the Israelis, have a major influence in American society by paying off a lot of politicians. And so it's in their interest to promote war.
Now they really don't care what the American people think, at this point because we're not that we're not organized as well as we need to be.
And so as long as we're not organized well, then we're not going to have a major impact on the government policy.
But, the armaments industry is well organized and financed, and so they die off they die off anybody they can or assassinate them, and the Israelis do the same thing.
So, it's hard to predict what The US will do and then, you know, Donald Trump changes his mind every few minutes about what he is going to do?
But nevertheless, the people of the world, the workers, the farmers, the families, we have to unite and build a peaceful world. It's not going to come from the top.
You know, Mao Tse Tung, the Chinese, leader back, many years ago, he made a statement that the world is in a state of chaos, and that's a good thing because that gives us poor people an opportunity to organize organize organize, and build alliances, build for change.
And so today, we've got to work to change the foreign policies in The United States in in in NATO, in the European Union, throughout the world, wherever there is we don't have leaders who are fighting for peace and justice, then we've got to change that. And it's of course, it's very difficult, it has never been easy.
And, we are, in a situation where we are challenged not only with warfare, but we're challenged with climate catastrophe. And, the deep poverty in our countries, even in the rich countries in Western Europe and North America, we're dealing with a lot of homelessness.
So, either we're going to, have a planet which is moving towards peace and justice, or we're going to have one that continues as colonialism and imperialism and the attack on, poor people, the attack on women, and the various injustices that we see. So the violence trickles down. A lot of poor people are fighting among themselves. We have all types of people, you know, in The United States, violence is like is just like apple pie. It's a norm, and it becoming more and more violent.
So either we have to stand up against it collectively or we're going to get be destroyed individually. I don't think we have a choice.
Q: Professor, is there any other, thing you would like to add, in this interview?
I would well, I would reemphasize, we have to think of ourselves, as powerful individuals, powerful people, and we think of ourselves as citizens of the world as well as citizens of a particular country. And so, we have a responsibility to lift up justice and peace everywhere.
