Sweden is known to be one of the least corrupt countries in the world. Or perhaps more accurately, it used to be that way. Three political scientists are now challenging the Swedish self-image. They claim that the Swedish institutions seem vulnerable to infiltration, corruption and fraud. Read more in Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish).

Around the world, many people suspect that some leading politicians are bought off by powerful interest groups, such as Big Pharma. A recent report from Germany highlights the problem:

Pfizer is one of the sponsors of the party conference of SPD, which is one of the ruling parties in Germany. Norbert Häring writes on his blog about this form of institutionalized corruption (in German):

Together with Biontech, Pfizer is producing a vaccine whose unrestricted patent protection was rigorously defended by the SPD

Pfizer profits enormously from vaccination, which is compulsory for health workers in Germany and perhaps soon for the general population.

Read the chronicle by Einar Øverenget (in Norwegian)

Yesterday it was announced in the UK that the High Court allowed the US appeal to reverse an order not to extradite Julian Assange, which we can read about for example in The Indicter. This is top news around the world, for example on DW, which interviewed Nils Melzer. However, it is remarkable how quiet some organizations are, which otherwise work for the protections of human rights. This can be seen especially in Sweden, one of the vassal states involved in the persecution of Assange. For example, at the time of writing this post, we cannot find is a word about the High Court’s decicion when we look at the web pages of the Amnesty Sweden, Civil Rights Defenders and UNA Sweden. Meanwhile, Amnesty International calls the High Court’s decicion a “travesty of justice”.

Read the article by Oscar Grenfell

Read the interview in Dagens Juridik (in Swedish). Will the preparations by the authorities for a new pandemic (“the big one”) lead to more repression?

According to Wochenblick, over 100,000 people demonstrated on Saturday in Vienna against the vaccination obligation (link to article in German). Other demonstrations have taken place for the same reason in other parts of Austria.

When it comes to vaccination obligation, some of the world’s most repressive countries nowadays are not typical dictatorships. We have recently reported about Austria. Swedish Television has also reported (in Swedish) that in Greece, people over 60 years are planned be fined 100 Euro per month if they are not vaccinated against Covid-19. In many other countries, such as the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji, you can loose your job if you are not vaccinated against Covid-19. In Latvia, some can also loose their right to vote, for the same reason. There are also extremely alarming reports from Australia, but it’s difficult to know if all of them are true.

Read on the Swedish pages of the 5th July Foundation about:

• Belgium’s third attempt to introduce data retention, which could be a European blueprint (see also EDRi in English)
• The extended FRA law in Sweden

Read in Kronen Zeitung (in German) about the draft of the new legislation in Austria. This is, like many other measures in Europe, completely against Resolution 2361 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which we have reported about before. In Austria, strikes are planned in the beginning of December as a protest.