For some reason, Lillian Gran is being subjected to treatment by the police, the courts, and now also forensic psychiatry that defies every conception of what is possible in Norway. People unfamiliar with the case react with scepticism: She must have done something! Yes, she has. She defended her children against abuse both from their father/stepfather and from the authorities, who are merciless.

On Wednesday there was another court hearing in Hamar with Judge Atle Løhren Hess and police prosecutor Wenche Brandstad linked in from Ålesund. Brandstad wanted to extend Gran’s compulsory observation at Østmarka under St. Olavs Hospital. Two psychologists were given six weeks to assess her “criminal responsibility” after she had spent the maximum period in pre-trial detention at Ravneberget near Sarpsborg (03.12.25–21.04.26). Brandstad wants the confinement in the high-security ward at Østmarka extended until 17 June. This is not because Gran is a complicated case requiring special attention. It is because Brandstad wants to keep Gran confined for as long as possible; she does not even conceal it.

Brandstad is on a campaign of revenge. She herself says that by 17 June Gran will have “overserved”. By then she will have been confined for 198 days – for nothing. She has not been convicted of anything.

Holding cell for six days

Her “crime” is that she answered a call from her children, who had been placed in foster care in Surnadal. It was unsafe there. Gran then did what all normal mothers would have done. She went there and collected them. At Atna they were stopped by the police. Mother and children were separated. Lillian was thrown into a holding cell in Kristiansund. She remained there for two days. This was on 14 May 2023.

She was supposed to be released, but the police appealed, and she had to spend four days in prison in Bergen together with hardened criminals.

When the police and the courts allow themselves to be used to harass a mother fighting for her children, something unreasonable has occurred.

The world turned upside down

Ordinary people are not aware that the child welfare services have developed their own terminology that turns reality upside down. What Lillian did when she answered the call from her children is called “withholding care” (“omsorgsunndragelse”). It is the State that has taken over the care of the children, and she is simply supposed to stay away. These are notions we associate with totalitarian states, and the Norwegian State’s treatment of families is beginning to attract international attention. Not only has Norway been condemned a number of times by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The point of appeal in particular concerns the State’s unwillingness to allow biological parents contact with their children. That, namely, is the aim of the legislation, even though the children are in principle supposed to be returned to the parents. But the Norwegian State does not want that. It “owns” the children, and this characterises both legislation and treatment.

Several foreign families have experienced the Norwegian State’s intoxication with power, and their stories have attracted international attention. This week the film by the Romanian director Christian Mungiu has been shown at the Cannes Festival. It concerns a Romanian family that comes into conflict with the Norwegian child welfare services. The mother, played by the superb actress Renate Reinsve, is a conservative Christian and does not wish to participate in the worship of homosexuality at school. Then you bring down the wrath of the State upon your head. Reinsve is far removed from the mother’s views, but is professional and portrays her with empathy. This causes the media to write that they are discovering a side of Norway of which they had no idea.

But if you have your antennae even slightly extended, you will have noticed signals that something is not as it should be, and the group Rettssikkerhet for alle (“Legal Protection for All”) has published a number of stories; Rune Fardal and several others are active. The activists are in the process of making contact with wider society, and that frightens the State.

During the court hearing in Hamar on Wednesday, the issue was the grandparents’ right to be parties to the case. The police and the child welfare services want to be able to sever contact also between grandparents and grandchildren, the last connection they have with the mother’s family.

Brandstad did not conceal that the grandmother’s contact with the media had generated negative publicity, and the police and child welfare services did not appreciate that.

This is taking place in a Norwegian courtroom in the year 2026.

Strasbourg

What is it that makes Lillian and her mother dangerous to the State? They are independent and strong, and they are resourceful. They are fighting for their own blood. One is not permitted to do that in the new Norway, and it goes directly to the heart of the introduction of the new society they are building, where the children belong to the State.

In Strasbourg lies the European Court of Human Rights, and in principle all members of the Council of Europe have the right to appeal their case to the Court. But this must take place within four months after the case is concluded. And it must be done by post. Many have sent submissions and heard nothing. Lillian and her mother became suspicious that perhaps all was not as it should be. They placed tracking devices in the parcel. There they could follow its journey down through Europe and saw that it remained at a post office near the border with France before being returned from there. Sabotage! All avenues are to be closed in order to spare the Norwegian State defeat.

But here Lillian and her mother’s steadfastness enters the picture: Lillian flew down to Strasbourg, appeared at the Court, and delivered the pile of documents personally.

That makes you an enemy of the state. If you refuse to bend, if you demonstrate that you possess the resources to challenge the State, then you become an enemy of the state.

This is an old drama: the State versus the people. Stoltenberg and Støre display some of the same arrogance in matters concerning taxes and electricity. Norwegians are not supposed to believe they are anything, nor have they earned anything.

This is an old play that was performed for 434 years while Norway was ruled by Denmark. The Danish nobility was accustomed to possessing power of life and limb over the peasants, and they brought these attitudes with them here, where free peasants existed.

The goblin and Rome directly opposite

The goblin came along for the ride into the new Norway. Now the State has become so rich that it regards itself as elevated high above the people. It is not the servant of the people. It can dictate.

I ask Lillian why the State is pursuing her and is willing to commit grave abuses in order to crush her. She herself does not understand it, but I do. It is her “Rome directly opposite” attitude (“Roma midt imot”); Lillian Gran’s journey to Strasbourg.

The film “Fjord” received ten minutes of standing ovations in Cannes, despite the fact that this audience is ideologically far removed from the milieus depicted. But the human aspect of the story grips them. It is the blood speaking, telling us what we are willing to do for those we love.

The inhuman side of the State that is emerging in Europe ought to make us reflect: surely it is not only Germans who can behave like Germans? Perhaps it is also Norwegians and Britons? For in our countries things are happening that are incompatible with what we believed ourselves to be, and the cracks are only becoming larger and larger.

It began with the father

The case against Lillian does not begin with her; it begins with the children’s father being violent towards her and committing abuse against their children. Not severe abuse, but transgressive enough for the child welfare services and the police to become involved. When the child welfare services implemented measures and moved the children to a foster home in Surnadal, Lillian’s protective instinct awoke. It is then that the case shifts from being a case against the children’s father to becoming a case against her. But she refuses to bend.

And now it once again becomes apparent how “dangerous” she is. She investigated the company operating the foster home: Anne Todal A/S. Lillian discovered that Anne Todal A/S no longer possessed authorisation to operate as a foster home. The husband was too old. Thus Lillian overruled the State and caught it committing “errors”. But the State would not tolerate that. One does not challenge the Norwegian State with impunity. That is why from that point onwards there were holding cells and confinement.

And this occurred on the basis of circumstances that people in civil society would regard as mere trifles, for example an SMS message from a mother to her children.

That is how the confinement began, in December 2025. Then police prosecutor Brandstad claimed that Lillian had sent an email in her daughter’s name. Why would Lillian Gran have done that? But in the Norwegian system these are serious crimes. Then it was straight into Ravneberget prison.

Here is a small detail: Lillian is a dissident and is treated as such. In prison, access to Document.no and Steigan.no is blocked.

At Østmarka they are in fact open, but there three policemen enter and confiscate her telephone and laptop.

Brandstad claims that she sent an SMS – with two hearts – from a number to which she does not have access, at a time when she had not been given her telephone and laptop. She only received them at 12:00, and the SMS had been sent around 10 o’clock. But even these contradictions do not concern the police, and the judge pushes through that she is to remain confined until 17 June.

Østmarka is situated in a scenic area at Lade outside Trondheim. There is a footpath leading down towards the sea, but Lillian is not allowed to walk on it. She receives 30 minutes of outdoor exercise each day.

An acquaintance who delivers Document to Østmarka has written a letter to Lillian and wishes to visit her. Then an application must be submitted, and every Tuesday it is decided whether the application will be approved. She receives one visit per week.

This is a regime; it is not an ordinary prison stay.

In the room where we speak together there is a wall outside: a brown-grey concrete or brick wall. It is intended to remind you that you are confined and powerless. It is intended to give you the claustrophobic sensation that prison gives people who come in from freedom.

One would think that the purpose of treatment, whether psychiatric or penal, would be to preserve hope in the inmate.

The wall tells you the opposite: they wish to break you.

That naturally affects the inmates, who develop an ambivalent attitude towards everyone they come into contact with. They are participating in something of which they are ashamed. Therefore visitors are potentially a threat.

You are admitted through sluices, as though it were a high-security prison full of dangerous inmates. You must surrender your mobile telephone. The keys to the lockers are flexible so that they cannot be used as weapons. They think of everything.

We have two hours together. One can accomplish quite a lot in two hours. And it is what Lillian recounts, connected to what we see around us, that gives me the story:

The buildings are from a bygone era, when Norway possessed the means and the taste to construct beautiful buildings. The new ones are functionalist monsters consisting of concrete, and everything is at 90-degree angles. No beautification, no border or ornamentation.

Our art critic Paul Grøtvedt reviewed the new Våler Church after it had burned down and said that it looked as though it had been designed by the Devil – so cold and inhuman was it.

Such is also the State that has taken over Norway.