The Australian government must reaffirm its support for the role of the UN and its official representative Francesca Albanese.
Ms Albanese is the special rapporteur whose express responsibility is to report on human rights abuses. Sanctions should not be imposed on the official reporting of human rights abuses.
The unjustified sanctions by the US should be clearly rejected as should any and all measures to prevent independent scrutiny of Israel’s, or any other country’s, actions in the course of conflict. Atrocities must not be ignored or obscured, particularly through attempts to persecute and intimidate a lawfully appointed investigator. Australia should be unequivocal in refusing to support, and indeed in treating as unlawful, any actions that seek to do so. Australia’s foreign relationships and even alliances cannot be conditional on our ignoring atrocities, tacitly affirming that they are ever justified, or being complicit in burying them.