From many countries around the world, we have unfortunately heard about many examples of how measures against the new coronavirus violate human rights or are used as an excuse for more or less dictatorial powers. Two discouraging examples, of many, are Bolivia and Russia.

Also the UN has addressed these issues and UN News reports that “police and other security forces are using excessive and sometimes deadly force to enforce lockdowns and curfews”.

At Accoun we have been critical against the decline in respect for human rights in Sweden, but we are glad that Sweden’s handling of the coronavirus has not included repressive measures and should in that respect serve as a good example.

Have you heard about censorship on social media and thought that it doesn’t happen to me? Well, you can try to publish a link to this website, accoun.org, on Facebook. Then see for yourself. We first noticed the problem on the 12 June 2020. Also older posts/comments including links to accoun.org seem to have been removed from Facebook. Despite that we tried to protest against this censorship, the situation is still the same, as shown by the screendump below. If you would find that Facebook’s ban of accoun.org has ended, please contact us so we know. To circumvent the censorship, writing accoun org (without dot) seems to still work on Facebook.

At Accoun, we have earlier brought news about censorship on Wikipedia to reader’s attention. Unfortunately we have more sad news about this – see part 1 and part 2 from The Grayzone. Among other things, The Grayzone reports that websites, which printed lies for example in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, are listed as reliable by Wikipedia. However, other websites with factual reporting that undermines these regime-change deceptions, are censored by Wikipedia.

Read the news from Amnesty International about the spying on Moroccan journalist Omar Radi.

It is terrible to see the photo from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the “Collateral Murder” video of civilians being gunned down in Iraq, but the comparison by Joe Lauria on Consortium News of the reaction to the evidence of two war crimes is important. At the end of the article he quotes Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, who says regardig the treatment of Julian Assange: “Things are getting worse. Far worse.”

Lately we also found out that the US prosecutors have failed to include the “Collateral Murder” video revelations in the indictment against Assange. It reminds us about Harold Pinter’s words about war crimes that “never happened”. Or at least, that is what they want you to believe.

Are you goind to let them get away with it?

If so, don’t be surprised if things are getting far worse.

Read the news about the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Common Dreams, NPR and in Swedish on UNA Sweden.