By supplying Francesca Albanese with research assistants that support her misconduct and by frequently inviting Albanese to speak on campus and virtually, Erasmus University has empowered Francesca Albanese’s wrongdoing.
Albanese’s Improper Research Assistants Affiliated with Erasmus
Sara Troian and Eleonora De Martin, Albanese’s two Erasmus-affiliated former research assistants, both assisted in Albanese’s financial improprieties. Specifically, they solicited inappropriate honorariums 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 his/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 current 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 worked until recently.
Eleonora De Martin identifies herself as a current graduate student at Erasmus University and a former research assistant for Albanese.
Most notably, although Albanese has acknowledged that she “cannot take [an] honorarium for anything she does in her official capacity,” evidence shows that Albanese, with her assistants Sara Troian and Eleonora De Martin, engaged in a practice by which Albanese 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 the purported event organizer 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 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 to 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).
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, Erasmus’s Dr. Jeff 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. 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 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.”
By giving Albanese a platform to spread her antisemitism and support for terroism, Erasmus has empowered Albanese and supported her misconduct.
