The state in the world today, the International Justice Day, gives little reason to celebrate. Impunity is more or less practice for certain groups in many countries. The principle of equality before the law is often very far from reality. This is a main reason for the seemingly never-ending story of horrible human rights abuses. The perpetrators are too often those who are supposed to protect us, but do the opposite. The development is not going in the right direction. One example is Spain’s controversial law called Ley Mordaza, which is now in force. Among other things, the law makes it illegal to take unauthorized photos of the police (making it difficult to document police brutality, of course). Even social media activism can be fined. It smells not like justice, but like a totalitarian police state.

Read The Intercept’s report about the assassination of Syrian general Muhammad Suleiman

Will the leaders who are allowing the looting of Greece to take place ever be held accountable? Probably they will be rewarded instead. Notice also how much of mainstream media that call the looting for rescue (because a flawed banking system is rescued?) and how they fail to mention important facts, such as the problems of high military spending and tax evasion. Read Paul Craig Roberts’ article and the New Statesman interview with Yanis Varoufakis.

A free press is fundamental to prevent and expose government crime and abuse of power. However, Egypt is doing more and more to take away this freedom (which is not really surprising in a country with rampant human rights abuses, for example also against students who are protesting against the increasing draconian rule).

Read the letter from the Committee to Protect Journalists

UN peacekeepers are accused of sexually abusing children and the UN seems to have tried to cover it up. See the news report on Democracy Now. The suspended French soldiers are probably not the only cases in what is called pandemic. By the way, why are they only suspended and not arrested?

However, this is not only happening under the wings of the UN. From before, we know that impunity for perpetrators and ill-treatment of whistleblowers is in reality widespread among many nations. This culture of impunity is actually the root of so many of the human rights violations, wars and huge environmental problems.

For the UN to tackle its own culture of impunity would be a good start, but we must face that the problem is much bigger.

Sometimes, the press is remarkably quiet. So quiet, that we understand the subject is very important.

The Spiegel’s recent news about an attack on press freedom is a clear example. How come that so much of the other media, which are otherwise so keen to stand up for the freedom of the press, are not even reporting a single line about this? As Harold Pinter said before about similar matters related to the United States, it is as if it never happened.

Last week, news also emerged about the government surveillance of Amnesty International, by GCHQ, which is cooperating with the US. This has also been underreported in a remarkable way, for example in Sweden. Amnesty’s Swedish website had not even mentioned this news on their own website, at the time of writing this blog post.

The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter instead praises the US for their defense of freedom, democracy and human rights. Read the editorial by Martin Liby Alonso and a comment by Anders Romelsjö (both in Swedish).

More and more testemonies are emerging about governments’ involement in creation of terror groups, a serious crime funded by taxpayers’ money. Watch the Ron Paul Liberty Report about the so called Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL).

Read the article by Paul Craig Roberts

Although we are all supposed to be equal before the law, in practice the elite can often get away with anything, while if you are in the bottom tier, you can be executed even if you are innocent.

Read about the execution of Aftab Bahadur

As we have written about before, the planned TTIP agreement violates the principle of equality before the law. Please contact your EU parliamentarians and let them know what you think, because they will make an important decision about TTIP now on Wednesday. Swedish readers can use this link to send a protest by e-mail.