GENEVA, September 1, 2026 — U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said Monday that senior UN Secretariat officials privately concede Special Rapporteurs such as Francesca Albanese “are out of control” and “a discredit to the UN,” yet have failed to hold them accountable for violating their code of conduct and using their posts to wage lawfare.
The remark follows last week’s Financial Times interview in which outgoing Secretary-General António Guterres admitted “we have many [rapporteurs] that are totally out of control, from the point of view of the Secretariat.”
Guterres had previously described Albanese privately as a “horrible person,” according to former U.S. antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt. His spokesman has also said the Secretariat “doesn’t agree with much of what she says.”
Albanese responded by claiming the Secretary-General “never meant what the pro-Apartheid scavengers spread” and accusing critics of being “genocide enablers.”
UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer noted that Albanese herself has said she has “never heard from” Guterres, making her poorly placed to interpret his words.
“Albanese has functioned as Hamas’s de facto spokesperson at the UN. Many leading democracies have condemned her for Holocaust inversion and other ethical violations, making her the first UN human rights official in history to be so denounced. The United States sanctioned her. Guterres called her a horrible person in private. Now Ambassador Waltz confirms what senior UN officials have been saying all along,” said Neuer.
“Albanese has functioned as Hamas’s de facto spokesperson at the UN,” said Neuer. “Iran’s regime and its terrorist proxies routinely praise her. But numerous democracies have called for her removal, condemning her for Holocaust inversion and other ethical violations, making her the first UN human rights official in history to be so denounced.”
“The United States sanctioned her. Guterres called her a horrible person in private. Now Ambassador Waltz confirms it: senior UN officials knew she was out of control. A human rights system that cannot remove its most notorious antisemite is not independent. It is broken,” said Neuer.
UN Watch reiterated its call for Albanese’s immediate removal, and for real accountability mechanisms before Guterres leaves office in December.
