Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday awarded Spain's Order of Civil Merit to U.N. special rapporteur Francesca Albanese in an apparent nod to her work on upholding Palestinian rights.
Forty-nine-year-old Albanese, an international human rights lawyer and prominent U.N. expert, has faced U.S. sanctions over her investigations into Israeli human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.
"Public responsibility also entails the moral obligation not to look the other way," Sanchez said in a statement announcing the award.
"It is an honor to award the Order of Civil Merit to a voice that upholds the conscience of the world: @FranceskAlbs, United Nations Special Rapporteur in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," he wrote in a post on X.
Albanese, in her response, praised the Spanish prime minister's stance on the Palestinian issue and the war in the Middle East.
