Russia’s decision to withdraw from the European Convention on the Prevention of Torture is, of course, deeply disturbing, but not entirely surprising in view of the Convention’s opening words:

The member States of the Council of Europe, signatory hereto,
Having regard to …
Recalling that, …
Noting that …
Convinced that the protection of persons deprived of their liberty against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment could be strengthened by non-judicial means of a preventive character based on visits,—
Have agreed as follows:


Russia was kicked out of the the Council of Europe in 2023, is consequently not a member, and has no representative in the “Committee” referred to in Article 1, which according to Article 4 should have one member from each of the member states. Russia’s withdrawal was, hence, a mere formality.

That is not to say that prisoners are not tortured in Russian prisons. If you run a search on the internet you will find hundreds of lurid descriptions of mistreatment in Russian prisons. I have found none of mistreatment in Ukrainian prisons. I do not doubt that there is mistreatment of prisoners in Russian prisons. I am, however, not at all convinced that there are none in Ukrainian prisons.

That being said, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, Mariana Katzarova, pursuant to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council resolution 54/23 has reported:

Since the submission of the Special Rapporteur’s first report [in 2023] the human rights situation in the Russian Federation has deteriorated further. There is now a structural, State-sponsored system of human rights violations legalized by new or revised legislation utilized to suppress civil society, dissenting views and political opposition. An environment of absolute impunity has been created, coupled with a lack of independent institutions to safeguard the rule of law and access to justice. Public anti-war expression or dissent of any kind is criminalized, the use of violence by law enforcement is condoned and arbitrary arrests and detentions are widespread. … [my highlight]

Not good. Not good, at all. And the fact that the situation in the USA is pretty bad, too is no excuse. (To my surprise, Russia isn’t even on the statista.com list over per capita incarcerations. USA even has more prisoners in all than China, the other big “authoritarian” state. In fact, China isn’t on the per capita list either.)

However, the 1.8 million prisoners in US prisons have not been incarcerated because they objected publicly to US wars and regime change operations. I believe that you can express pretty well anything in any format in the US, without the police’s interfering. And that is certainly good. What is less good is that it doesn’t matter what you say or how many of you say it, because your congress and your government will do exactly as they please, or rather, as their donors please. And in the end you will end up saying what they want you to say, anyway, regardless of what you wanted to say, but forgot.

The very word “drugs”, for instance, works like magic. Likewise, the words “terrorism”, “Democracy”, “justice” serve as electrical triggers in your brain. Judicious use of such words will bring you in line in a jiffy.

Same here in Norway, where most people agree on just about everything (except wealth tax), so there is no iconoclasm to crack down on. We are all mildly woke, all reasonably polite about our insignificant differences of opinion. And the only thing we are passionate about is the “defence of” Ukraine against Russia. (In other contexts – political or otherwise – Norwegians find passion vaguely indecent.)

We are not even passionate about Gaza, just sad. Very, very sad.

Our media is so in step with official US / EU geopolitical perspectives that just about the entire population here parrots the remarkably cynical and/or ignorant Kaja Kallas. Don’t ask me how and why my compatriots are so ignorant about the country they are “passionate” about. The history of the conflict, for instance, does not seem to interest them in the least. Nor do they understand that Ukraine has long since lost the war, and that prolonging it only entails further deaths, further destruction and misery. You’d think our leaders had put all peacenics behind bars. They have not.

Don’t ask me how they do it, because I have no idea! It is truly a mystery. We even have access to Russian media and to Chinese media. We have access to a plethora of dissident US media. (We have hardly any dissident media of our own.) Still, there is only negligible criticism of EU warmongering.

How do they do it? Has the Norwegian population been bewitched?

Of what use, pray tell, is freedom of expression without freedom of thought?

Today, walking the dog, I see that somebody has parked this hideous thing just outside my town, the capital of my country. The press is silent about it.