Johan with his beloved daughter, Irene Galtung.
Johan was forced to live his last months at a hospice despite his express wish to live with his daughter, Irene Galtung, to the end. He was mistreated there and got infections. He was given morphine against his will. For a short period, Irene was barred by authorities from visiting him – at which point he decided to stop eating. She had to fight for an autopsy, and it took months to receive the results.
On Wikipedia you can read this harrowing account about how the hospice mistreated Johan:
“Galtung died in Stabekk Helsehus og Hospice, Baerum, Norway, on 17 February 2024, at the age of 93.
Galtung’s daughter, Irene Galtung, demanded an autopsy. The final autopsy report (September 2024) revealed the cause of death was pneumonia. Stabekk Helsehus did not know he had pneumonia; nor did they check whether he had it; nor did they treat it.
Furthermore, it was revealed (October 2024) that Galtung was not given any treatment whatsoever in Stabekk Helsehus from 2 to 17 February, 2024, even though he repeatedly expressed he wanted to live.
On 6 February 2024, the Stabekk Helsehus doctor had even confirmed that Johan was – not – dying, and could live weeks, months or years. Galtung was given morphine in Stabekk Helsehus, even though he did not want it because he said it is dangerous. There was no indication that he had the type of pain that necessitated morphine. Galtung was given increasing doses of morphine in the days before he died. At 6 am on February 17, 2024, only a short time before he died the same day, he was given morphine.”
Irene visited her father every day, cared for him, and made him happy. However, she learnt about his death from the media, the day after she had paid her last visit to him. Presumably to avoid an autopsy, she was told that he had already been cremated just hours after his death, but that turned out to be a untrue.
There was no funeral for him. His ashes were scattered behind the back of Irene – despite Johan’s written wish that she alone should do it. Johan’s will – a document printed and stamped by legal authorities in Spain where he lived and signed by him – was repeatedly ignored.
An old friend of his, Dag Poleszynski, who had assisted Irene in bringing Johan from his home in Spain to Norway was accused of having ‘kidnapped’ him against his will although there are solid documentation, also from third parties, proving that he wanted to get back to Norway.
Out of love, Irene cared more for her beloved father (and mother Fumiko Nishimura Galtung 1936-2024) for years than anyone else. But because of a systematic disregard for her and her father’s rights, wishes and well-being by the Norwegian health authorities and others, she has been forced to seek assistance from lawyers.
Irene wrote a fact-based, superbly well-documented report of all she and her father had to endure in terms of gross human rights violations the last months of his life.
However, after I had published it at The Transnational, family members turned to a lawyer and threatened TFF and me as publisher/editor with a lawsuit and exorbitant legal costs which neither I nor TFF would be willing to waste money, energy and time on.
When human rights violations by Norwegian authorities ought to be investigated, the victim’s freedom of expression had to be suppressed.
Irene Galtung holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy and wrote a PhD with the title Lawyers or Liars? Is World Hunger Suable in Court? In spite of that legal human rights competence – or perhaps because of it – she knew exactly what was going on, and her heartbreaking account of human rights violations committed against her father and herself had to be suppressed. To hide what? In whose interest?
Evidently, the public should not hear anything about how this world-renowned great Norwegian social scientist and peace-maker – fully on par in his field with, say, author Henrik Ibsen and painter Edvard Munch in their fields – was forced to suffer during the last six months of his life.
Official Norway – whose ‘intelligence’ service had kept files of Johan as if he was a spy because of his visits to the Soviet Union during the first Cold War to explore issues at first hand – obviously felt relieved that this critic of NATO Norway’s US-submissive policies was finally gone.
Shamefully for official Norway now a year later: No street name, no national archive collection, no museum, no park, no statue, no King’s Medal of Merit, no order of St. Olav (Cross, Commander or Knight), no Nobel Peace Prize – and no other recognition of the great work for peace – for the UN Charter norm that ‘peace shall be established by peaceful means’ – that this Norwegian did over 7 decades.
Evidently, there are officials and other lesser-minds in Norway who want Johan Galtung’s unique, global peace lifework to be forgotten and the human rights violations he had to endure towards the end of his life to be blacked out.
This memorial site focuses on that lifework and is a small effort to keep it alive for future generations.
It also serves to counter the mentioned forces of darkening.
I support Johan and Irene brain and heart. If Norway is a legal state with an independent judiciary, justice must be served through future legal processes. Truth will out, as they say.
Here is how you can support Irene Galtung in her ongoing legal fight to achieve justice for Johan and herself. Please take action now.
And finally, here is the last public video with a physically weakened but intellectually clear Johan from July 2022.
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Johan Galtung 1930-2024 
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