Many of us would have been introduced to the Human’s Right Foundation (HRF) through Alex Gladstein’s remarkable research articles and books exposing the hypocrisy and deadly schemes used by the Western leaders to keep the rest of the world in a state of financial colonialism. At the recent Oslo Freedom Forum, a Financial Freedom day highlighted well known figures of the bitcoin world presenting their projects and explaining how bitcoin can empower the oppressed world and help it fight against authoritarianism.

It was a refreshing day and somehow more inspiring than the previous two days which showcased the stories of political activists persecuted and sometimes killed by their governments. While many stories were touching and shed light on tyrants and conflicts often unknown to the public, one couldn’t stop to wonder where were the main tyrants and dictators, those who make the news every day for their crimes usually disguised under well-meaning rhetoric and false pretenses?

Where were the presidents lying to the public to engage in military conflicts, escalation and forever wars (e.g., gulf of Tonkin “incident” in Vietnam, missing weapons of mass destruction in Irak), the CIA-backed regime changes installing favorable dictators or the presidents providing financial and military support to rogue states committing mass murders? Where were the Julian Assange, Edward Snowden or Gonzalo Lira who are/were harassed by the West as much as the journalists featured in this forum?

Sadly in recent years the list of Western authoritarians has gone longer and normalized, from the Canadian truckers stripped of their bank accounts for protesting state policies, anti-speech laws everywhere in the Western world or the persecution and selective application of laws against political opponents in the US.

A few people from the HRF do an excellent job to expose the worst behavior of world leaders but the world is turning into a global CCP and it is a shame that this forum presented a very truncated landscape of today’s authoritarianism and by doing so is robbing itself and its followers of an opportunity to expose the main perpetrators of harassment and war crimes in the world