WHEN you hear that a government – usually the US or its glove puppet, the UK – has ‘sanctioned’ somebody, what does that mean?

The term was bandied about a lot in 2022 after Putin invaded Ukraine.

Billionaire Russian oligarchs, supporters of Putin like Roman Abramovich, former owner of Chelsea football club, who has houses in England and owns what was once the world’s largest private yacht, had their assets in Britain frozen, couldn’t travel freely or engage in international business.

You also hear about Russian tankers being sanctioned for carrying oil from Russia which, until Trump relaxed the ban in March, was not allowed to be exported.

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Though that was more honoured in the breach and Russia got round it by using a so-called ‘shadow fleet’ of tankers.

So, sanctions are imposed on bad actors and rogue states to make it difficult for them to operate?

Well, it’s not that simple. Unfortunately the US has increasingly imposed sanctions on individuals who are doing their jobs, but their jobs are ones the malevolent clown in the White House doesn’t like.

Since his second coming in 2025, he and his boot-licking Secretary of State Marco Rubio have sanctioned an ever-growing number of lawyers, human rights societies and activists, especially if they have anything to do with Palestine.

For a sanctioned individual it amounts to what has been called ‘civil death’.

One of those affected, Francesca Albanese, a UN special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, was sanctioned last year within weeks of Trump’s re-election.

She explains what it means: “I go around with cash or I have to borrow from friends or from family members.”

Why? She can’t use a credit card anywhere in the world because their transactions are almost all processed by US-based services.

She can’t rent a car, use Amazon, get credit. Her use of a computer is also compromised because she can’t avail of, say, Microsoft or Apple.

Sanctioning bans any American person or entity from providing her with “funds, goods or services”.

The apartment she bought in New York when she worked in the US has been seized. She has been declared a ‘specially designated national’, so would be arrested if she travelled to America.

What did she do? As the UN rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, she published a report in March 2024 called ‘Anatomy of a Genocide’ detailing Israeli atrocities: the vast number they’ve killed including over 20,000 children, the systematic destruction of Gaza’s health service, hospitals, education system, mosques, cultural centres, residential accommodation, the deliberate starvation, denial of medical supplies and so on.

She has subsequently added more reports to her first one. In June 2025 she published ‘From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide’, which showed how many of the world’s corporations have investments linked to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

Her findings are unchallenged and supported by multiple agencies including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Amnesty and the UN commission of inquiry.

Albanese is the first UN official (though it should be said her work as a rapporteur is pro bono) to be sanctioned.

However, other lawyers and officials doing their jobs have also fallen foul of the malevolent clown.

In May 2024 a prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan KC sought arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. As soon as Trump was re-elected he sanctioned Khan.

Mind you, for good measure Rubio also sanctioned another ICC prosecutor for seeking to investigate individual US soldiers for war crimes in Afghanistan. Rubio also included a couple of ICC judges too.

You see, the US doesn’t recognise the ICC, or indeed the International Court of Justice, although all UN member states are parties to the ICJ Statute.

Albanese has now written a book, ‘When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words and Wounds of Palestine’. It is published in the US on April 28 but the publisher will not be able to provide any “funds, goods or services” to her.

Presumably they will retain the royalties until such time as sanctions are lifted, or if there’s ever a sensible US president again?

It will be published elsewhere on April 30. It remains to be seen how she will be paid any royalties from the sales. She doesn’t any longer have a bank account or a bank card.

Meanwhile, the US breaks international law and engages in an illegal war against Iran and in piracy on the high seas in the Persian Gulf.

You don’t suppose there’s any chance the UK will sanction Marco Rubio, as they have Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for inciting violence against Palestinians?

Wonder why not? They turn a blind eye to American atrocities, that’s why.

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