Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The law prohibits such practices, and there were no reports that government officials employed them.

- Amnesty international has, during the last two decades, pointed out that the use of holding cells in Norway is to be considered torture. The lack of mattresses, proper sanitary facilities and room temperature in these cells are from time to time used to sleep-deprivate arrestees for several days and nights prior to interrogation. Such holding cells are also frequently used for custody purposes in cases where a suspect chooses to remains silent.

1d

Adequate measures were in place to investigate police abuses. An independent police complaint commission investigates reports of corruption within the police force

- Unlike the United States, in wich police officers and deputies are investigated by an independent police unit ("internal affairs") with seperate training and schooling, Norways law enforcement officers are investigated by their own colleagues from neighbouring precincts and former class mates.

The law requires warrants for arrests

- Only when making a premeditated arrest is a warrant needed. Norwegian police can in principle, and has done so on numerous occacions, detain anyone for four hours without any reason what so ever. On some occations people have been detained for up to 20 hrs with no explanation.

Police must file charges against detained persons within four hours, and detainees must be promptly informed of the charges against them. An arrested suspect must be arraigned within 24 hours, at which time the arraigning judge determines whether the accused should be held in custody or released pending trial.

- Charges have to be filed after 24 hrs. The only "24hr rule" with a direct consequence is that if the arrestee is brought before a jugde after more than 24 hrs, the grounds of  the delay must be given. The reason "large workload" is frequently given. Norwegian law permits incarceration for 7 days without being arraigned.

1e

The constitution and law provide for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected judicial independence in practice.

- Norwegian juries and judges are all appointed by the political parties representing the current system and can hardly be noted as "politically independent".

Charges are stated clearly and formally, and defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence.

- Prominent Norwegian defence attorneys have on several occasions claimed that one of the larger flaws of the Norwegian legal system is that the presumption of the judges and juries seems to be that if you are charged, it is highly probable that you have done at least something wrong.

Defendants and their attorneys have access to government-held evidence relevant to their cases.

- On numerous occasions both during 2007 and in the past, defendants were not allowed access to the evidence held against them. Their attorneys were allowed to review the material after giving an oath not to reveal its content to their clients - putting them in what the Norwegian bar association of defense attorneys describe as a hopeless situation when advising their clients.

2a. Freedom of Speech and Press

The constitution and law provide for freedom of speech and of the press, and the government generally respected these rights in practice. An independent press, an effective judiciary, and a functioning democratic political system combined to ensure freedom of speech and of the press.

- Though anyone in Norway is allowed to put forth their political agenda, certain consequences must be taken into account. Violence, vandalism and death-threats have been directed at i.e. peaceful; anti-abortion activists, anti-immigration activists, scientists deriding the theories of global warming, anti-Islam activists and activists demonstrating or writing against the right of gay couples to marry.

The press refuses to bring to public view these acts of violence and threats. A large number of Norwegian journalists and editors are deeply socially entangled with the powers that be. The journalists and politicians frequent the same pubs in the capitol, go to the same parties and snort the same cocaine. The press is suspiciously unanomous when addressing political issues of significance. Not surprisingly, the Norwegian TV-station TV2 embraced the report that warranted this article.

2b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The constitution and law provide for freedom of assembly and association, and the government generally respected these rights in practice.

- The freedom of peaceful assembly and association is non existant in Norway when it comes down to marginalized political movements. On several occasions so-called anarchist youth have, by use of violence, limited these rights with the police as passive witnesses. Both the party "The Democrats" and the "Norwegian national socialist movement" were attacked during 2007, the latter occasion resulting in physical harm to participants. No arrests were made. Police were present on the first occasion. On the second they failed to make any arrests in spite of the fact that identities of several of the perpetrators were known. 40 anarchists were able to slip unnoticed through the police perimeter set up minutes after the attack. It has become habitual over the last decades that anarchist youth, functioning as a political renovation service, is able to get away with serious acts of violence against dissidents.

3

The constitution provides citizens the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercised this right in practice through periodic, free, and fair elections held on the basis of universal suffrage.

- The criminal law prohibids the use of aggressive language against the government (§ 135). In Norwegian elections, the people are allowed to vote for representatives already handpicked by the political parties. It is generally known that the processes in which the candidates are nominated include prostitution and extortion. The voters do not have the opportunity to scratch representatives from the lists presented by the policial parties.

5 National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Two cases of official racial discrimination were reported in the media. The first involved the death in police custody of Norwegian-Nigerian Obiora (see section 1.d.). The second involved a Somali male who was left disoriented and bleeding after being physically assaulted in a public park. Ambulance personnel called to the scene refused to transport the victim, calling him a "pig" and leaving him without medical attention.

- After he had urinated on the ambulance and one paramedic.

Recorded comments between ambulance personnel and their dispatcher were clearly racist.

- Not one word concerning the victims color, ethnic origin or race is uttered in these recordings. The paramedic in question simply states that: "There is going to be trouble..there were lots of people there, taking pictures and what not. I dont care how hard he was hit, when he urinates on me I am not transporting him"

The victim made his way to the hospital by taxi, where he was put in a medically induced coma to recuperate.

- He was not transported to the hospital, but to a public health-centre, examined by a doctor and THEN admitted to the local hospital (including transport by ambulance) where a CT-scan was performed. Neurosurgeons then waited 6 hrs - due to diagnostic purposes - before they chose to operate.