FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
UN Watch Urges Guterres to Fire Francesca Albanese Following Georgetown Termination
Geneva, Dec. 31, 2025 — UN Watch today called on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (see letter below) to immediately terminate UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, following Georgetown University’s decision to sever all ties with her for grave ethical violations.
In a formal letter sent today to the Secretary-General, UN Watch documented that Albanese’s conduct has repeatedly violated the UN’s own Code of Conduct and has gravely undermined the credibility of the UN human rights system. Albanese has been denounced by France, Germany, Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands for antisemitism and Holocaust inversion, and has been sanctioned by the United States. Despite this, the UN has taken no disciplinary action.
“Georgetown University has done what the United Nations has refused to do,” said Hillel C. Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch. “The UN cannot credibly claim to stand against hate and extremism while protecting an official condemned by democratic governments for antisemitism and sanctioned for ethical breaches. Silence is no longer an option.”
The letter further urges the Secretary-General to publicly denounce Albanese for misleading the United Nations and the public about her academic status. UN Watch documented that although Georgetown terminated Albanese’s affiliation by August 2025, she continued for months thereafter to falsely present herself—on official UN webpages, at public events in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and on Wikipedia—as a Georgetown scholar.
“This was not a clerical error. It was a deliberate pattern of deception,” Neuer added. “An individual entrusted with a UN mandate must meet the highest standards of integrity and honesty. Ms. Albanese has repeatedly failed that test.”
UN Watch also called on the Secretary-General to correct the official UN website to accurately reflect that Georgetown severed ties with Albanese following international condemnation and U.S. sanctions, and to acknowledge that her mandate was never lawfully renewed and should be declared to have ended on April 30.
“Accountability cannot be selective,” said Neuer. “If the UN wishes to restore trust in its human rights machinery, it must act decisively, starting now.”
About UN Watch
UN Watch is a Geneva-based independent non-governmental organization that monitors the performance of the United Nations by the standards of its own Charter and promotes human rights worldwide.
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Letter from Hillel Neuer to UNSG Antonio Guterres
31 December 2025
Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
In wake of Georgetown University’s announcement that it has rightly decided to terminate Francesca Albanese, we urge you and the UN to immediately do the same.[1] Ms. Albanese’s actions gravely undermine the credibility of the UN human rights system and your stated commitment to combating terrorism and hate. She has repeatedly violated the UN’s own Code of Conduct and engaged in antisemitism and Holocaust inversion, for which she has been denounced by France, Germany, Canada, Italy and the Netherlands, and sanctioned by the United States. The UN’s own Coordination Committee acknowledged that Ms. Albanese received funding from “external groups”—the pro-Hamas AFOPA—and “inappropriately” solicited money for lectures. Last month, she was condemned across Italy for issuing a “warning” to journalists. Her conduct is incompatible with the integrity required of a UN figure. We urge you to end your silence and declare the termination of an individual who brings the world body into disrepute.
Second, we urge you to denounce Ms. Albanese for misleading the United Nations about her removal from Georgetown University. As documented in our correspondence with Georgetown, Ms. Albanese’s termination went into effect by August 2025, and yet—months later—she still falsely described herself on her UN website as “an affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University.” We urge you to immediately delete this, and to instead correct the UN website as follows: “In 2025, after Francesca Albanese was denounced for Holocaust inversion and other grave ethical violations by France, Germany, Canada, Italy and the Netherlands, and sanctioned by the United States, Georgetown University severed all ties with her.”
Finally, we urge you to denounce Ms. Albanese for deliberately misleading the wider public. Long after her termination, she has continued to falsely describe herself—at recent events in SOAS, Qatar, and South Africa, and on Wikipedia through Dec. 25—as being a Georgetown scholar. This is part of a pattern and practice of Ms. Albanese’s persistent non-compliance with her UN obligations of integrity, honesty and good faith.
Sincerely,
Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director
[1] We urge you to declare Albanese’s mandate was never lawfully renewed and thus ended on 30 April.
