Erasmus University has enabled serious wrongdoing by UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese, hosting her research assistants that support her misconduct and by frequently inviting Albanese to speak on campus and virtually,
Pro-Hamas Funding to Albanese’s Office Funneled Via Erasmus Research Assistants
Sara Troian and Eleonora De Martin, Albanese’s research assistants based at Erasmus, both assisted in Albanese’s financial improprieties. They were involved in soliciting inappropriate funding from external donors for Albanese’s office, in violation of Article 3 of the Special Procedures Code of Conduct which prohibits mandate holders from accepting remuneration from “any governmental or non-governmental source” for activities carried out in pursuit of her mandate.
Sara Troian was affiliated with Erasmus University as a Visiting Fellow with the university’s International Institute of Social Studies. Troian is also a member of Albanese’s Global Network for the Question of Palestine (GNQP) which lists her as a researcher of the Arab Renaissance for Democracy & Development, where Albanese was a paid employee until recently.
In addition, Eleonora De Martin, who identifies herself as a graduate student at Erasmus University and a former research assistant for Albanese.
Though Albanese acknowledged that she “cannot take [an] honorarium for anything she does in her official capacity,” evidence shows that, with her assistants Sara Troian and Eleonora De Martin, the UN’s main Hamas apologist engaged in a practice by which she knowingly and unethically circumvented this prohibition.
In correspondence that has been confirmed by Albanese’s office, in response to a request for Albanese to speak to student protesters at Columbia University on May 7, 2024, Eleonora De Martin replied to as follows from Albanese’s UNSROPT email address:
“[C]oncerning the honorarium, she [Albanese] cannot take honorarium for anything she does in her official capacity. However, she kindly asks for this honorarium to be transferred to the Fellowship of her volunteer which supports her mandate and work. Could you please provide some detail on the sum of the honorarium? The research institute will then send you the invoice for payment.”
This demonstrates that through Martin, Albanese requested that in exchange for her lectures, payments by external groups — presumably pro-Hamas be made to her research assistant in violation of the UN Code of Conduct.
Following this, in an attempt to shield Albanese, Sara Troian then later claimed that “it was me proposing” that the funds be sent.
However, contrary to this, the original email from Albanese’s UNSROPT office made clear that the proposal was made by Albanese herself: “she kindly asks for this honorarium to be transferred to the Fellowship of her volunteer which supports her mandate and work.” (emphasis added).
NEW: UN's Hamas apologist Francesca Albanese duped by parody invitation to address Columbia jihadis, asked honorarium be paid to her assistant. So the UNHRC's rapporteur on Palestine is so ignorant that she believes there is a “Chief Rabbi of Gaza,” a judenrein land since 2005? pic.twitter.com/xctPqmob9B
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) May 7, 2024
In a separate prior instance, Sara Troian supported Albanese’s misconduct with regards to her November 2023 trip to Sydney, Australia, together with an additional six flights—to Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne again, then Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand—which is estimated to have cost $22,500. This figure includes expenses for Troian, who accompanied Albanese on the trip.
Evidence indicates that Albanese, directly or indirectly via Sara Troian, improperly accepted significant remuneration by pro-Palestinian lobby groups to cover all or part of these expenses, in gross and material breach of the Code of Conduct. This was later confirmed on March 28, 2025, by the UN Coordination Committee which operates under the UN Human Rights Council.
Moreover, based on the statements by the pro-Palestinian lobby groups involved in Albanese’s trip, UN Watch has reason to believe that such groups—including Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA), Free Palestine Melbourne, and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)—supplied part or all of the “external funding.” For reference, AFOPA is a group that praised the “incredibly moving” Hamas terror leader Yahya Sinwar after he was killed by Israel in October 2024. Likewise, on October 7, 2023, PSNA stated that “the Hamas attacks are understandable,” describing it as “Gaza breaks out of prison.”
Albanese’s “Warm Welcome” at Erasmus
Since May 2024, Francesca Albanese has spoken repeatedly by video and in-person at Erasmus and through the university’s International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Dr. Jeff Handmaker from Erasmus’s ISS has said that the center is “very grateful for the active participation of Francesca Albanese, calling for a “warm welcome” to her.
On February 14, 2025, Albanese spoke on campus at an event sponsored by various Erasmus faculties and centers, including the Humanitarian Studies Centre and Legal Mobilization Platform. The event notes that it was “facilitated by Erasmus University Rotterdam.” More specifically, organizers included Dr. Siobhan Airey of Erasmus’s School of Law, Dr. Isabel Awad from the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, and Dr. Jeff Handmaker from Erasmus’s ISS. The event was also moderated by Professor Jiska Engelbert from the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences.
In addition to this event, Handmaker also produced a 4-part webinar series under the International Institute of Social Studies to discuss the “Untold stories of occupied Palestine.” Albanese appeared on three of the four webinars. Handmaker notes that this series was “co-organized with Francesca Albanese…and her professional staff, and in particular Sara Troian.”
In the first episode on May 23, 2024, entitled “October 7: Terrorism or National Liberation Movement?,” Albanese stressed that the Palestinains “have a right to resist” and that there has been a “critical weaponization of the terrorism definition.” In the second episode on May 31, 2024, Handmaker brought Albanese back to discuss in-person “the crime of genocide and how the framework can be applied to the offensive launched by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza after 7 October.” Lastly, on July 1, 2024, Albanese again joined Handmaker to discuss the “ground-breaking case in the ICJ” of South Africa v. Israel. The episode stressed “the historical significance of South Africa, a nation liberated from apartheid, bringing Israel’s apartheid state before the prime judicial organ of the UN.”
On December 1, 2022, Albanese also spoke at an event entitled “Palestine at the ICC: Justice Delayed is Justice Denied,” moderated by Handmaker and co-organized by the ISS.
Notably, Handmaker himself has spent his time at Erasmus providing cover for Hamas terrorism. Days after Hamas’s barbaric attack murdering 1,200 Israelis on October 7th, 2023, he wrote on the ISS’s website that it “is important in this context to understand what was behind the attacks by Hamas-affiliated groups, purportedly in response to Israel’s appalling treatment of Palestinians who remain under occupation in the Gaza Strip.” In May 2024, Handmaker framed Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations as “groups who have been revolting against 75 years of settler colonial dispossession, 56 years of military occupation of Palestinian territory, and 16 years of an air sea and land blockade of the Gaza Strip.”
Previously, Handmaker also wrote for the Electronic Intifada in which he whitewashed Hamas as a mere “political party” while arguing that “asking for an acknowledgement from Hamas of Israel’s ‘right to exist’ is a disingenuous request, rooted neither in international law nor in any constructive political consideration.” Handmaker is also an advocate of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
By giving Albanese a platform to spread her antisemitism and support for terrorism, Erasmus has empowered Albanese and supported her misconduct.
