Antirasistisk Front has attacked Progress Party (FrP) politician Jon Helgheim over his criticism of research claiming that right-wing extremism has doubled in Norway since 2022.

The organisation mentions four murders in an article in Utrop, emphasising the seriousness of the issue, but omits central aspects of the crime picture in Norway.

The four murders highlighted are those of Benjamin Hermansen, Johanne Ihle-Hansen, Arve Beheim Karlsen and Tamima Nibras Juhar. All are real. All are tragic.

None of them has been chosen at random.

What they have in common is that the perpetrators were either ethnic Norwegians or can be linked to right-wing extremist ideology. What is omitted is that Norway has also witnessed a significant amount of violence, murder, terrorism and sexual offences in which the perpetrators have had a non-Western immigrant background.

And when we write significant, we are being very cautious.

Statistics Norway’s (SSB) own figures show that, during the period 2020–2023, young men with an immigrant background were 96 per cent overrepresented in violent crime, while Norwegian-born individuals with immigrant parents were 124 per cent overrepresented. The overrepresentation has increased sharply since the period 2015–2018. According to SSB, men of Somali background in Oslo account for almost as many charges of violent offences as the entire remainder of Oslo’s population combined.

Among the high-profile cases that Antirasistisk Front does not mention is the terrorist attack on London Pub in 2022, in which Zaniar Matapour shot and killed two people and injured many others during Pride. Matapour was an Iranian Kurd with links to Islamist circles. The attack targeted LGBT people, something Antirasistisk Front has, in other contexts, highlighted as being particularly serious. Likewise omitted are gang conflicts in Oslo, honour killings in Norwegian families, and a number of abuse cases involving asylum reception centres and child welfare institutions.

In his criticism, Helgheim has pointed to four questions in the C-REX survey which he believes can be interpreted in different ways. Among them are statements such as “violence between different ethnic or religious groups is largely unavoidable” and “Norway is becoming a lawless society”. He argues that such formulations capture legitimate concerns among ordinary Norwegians and that the researchers are thereby constructing an exaggerated threat.

C-REX director Anders Ravik Jupskås has himself acknowledged in interviews that the survey questions can be interpreted broadly.

Antirasistisk Front rejects Helgheim’s methodological criticism without addressing the substance itself, instead highlighting his political record, including a 2024 decision by Drammen Municipality to prioritise Ukrainian refugees over other groups.

The decision was later ruled unlawful by the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal (Diskrimineringsnemnda).

Document contacted Jon Helgheim for a comment on the case, and he replied as follows:

“There is little value in discussing such matters with Antirasistisk Front. They hold a racist worldview that means they only see the faults of white people, and I do not take that seriously.

My criticism of the research on right-wing extremism is highly relevant and accurate, but it is not on the level that Antisemitic Front is attempting.

I do not in any way deny that right-wing extremist attitudes and right-wing extremist violence exist; I am criticising the labelling of ordinary people as right-wing extremists.

They, on the other hand, are trying to turn this into a competition over who commits the most violence, and that is a new low. If we were to go down that road, it would quickly become apparent that immigrants from Africa and the Middle East commit vastly more violence than others, often against people of a different skin colour.”