Already in the headline, Norwegian tabloid VG sets the tone.

On social media, images are being circulated of a Norwegian 16-year-old lying dead on the floor.

Doctors and politicians say they believe the girl was killed.

And that the Norwegian authorities are concealing the truth.

It sounds as though they are uncovering a conspiracy. Team VG has spoken to one of the brothers, Mohammed, and views the sister’s death through his eyes. Images of the dead sister are being circulated online. The word “circulated” carries a dark undertone. Could it be that people simply cared?

Soon, videos will also appear of a Norwegian doctor in a white coat speaking about Shada.

VG makes it sound as though Rodgeir Vinsrygg is a Doctor Mengele; not directly, of course, but the way they deliberately use the phrase “white coat”. VG employs insinuation in a sneaky manner. They assassinate character without leaving any blood behind.

The lengthy article about Team Shada and the media outlets that have collaborated with them, Document.no and Steigan.no, is full of such tripwires.

Nowhere does VG ask the question: What has caused these people and media outlets to become so deeply engaged in this story?

The impression left with the reader is that these are malicious people cynically exploiting the death of a poor, defenceless girl. They use their power and position to gain attention by spreading false rumours. For VG refutes everything Vinsrygg and the alternative media have said and written. It is a lie. Shada took her own life; there was no rape, no murder.

The claims surrounding the Shada case do not withstand contact with reality. That, in brief, is VG’s conclusion.

Vinsrygg is held responsible for Mohammed beginning to wonder whether perhaps his sister did not die a natural death.

At the same time, VG is engaged in pedagogical instruction: See the harmful effect that influencers with bad intentions can have! There is an implicit call for censorship embedded in the story when VG reveals the dissemination effect:

Mohammed is only a teenager. He does not know what to do to find out what happened to his sister.

The narrative that Shada was killed grows larger.

The story spreads in Norway and to several other countries. Podcasts, alternative media, and news influencers believe they have found the truth.

Two of the videos showing Shada’s corpse receive more than 700,000 views.

VG conveniently refrains from asking what caused the story to grow and “take off”.

Could it have something to do with the silence surrounding the case on the part of the authorities? Could it have something to do with the Norwegian Child Welfare Services (Barnevernet)?

These issues are not touched upon by VG.

The silence surrounding the Child Welfare Services in the Norwegian media is no confirmation that everything is functioning properly.

VG and Faktisk.no have obtained “multiple police investigations, Child Welfare Services documents, and parts of Shada’s mobile phone and diary”. The impression is given that they possess the answer, but the tone is advocatory and controlled: VG is on a mission. It is important for them to bring down Team Shada, the whistle-blowers, and their friends in the media.

They made contact with one of the brothers in January and place him in front of them:

– Why has nobody called me before? I have been sitting here for six years waiting for answers.

VG could have answered him: Why have they not lifted a finger to find out the truth? VG’s intervention at this stage is not convincing. They have remained silent for too long.

Their investigations have been too focused on taking down Team Shada. That is why many people do not wish to speak to them.

The result is now before us and confirms the suspicions. VG is pursuing an agenda.

They do not question what they themselves are presenting. Everything is spun around a narrative. Disturbing information has been omitted.

It is stated that the family wanted to escape the “war in Palestine” when they came to Norway in 2004. VG has adopted the practice of referring to the West Bank as Palestine.

Shada’s parents are Palestinians, and that plays a rather significant role in the story of her death. When she dies, the father travels down to inform the mother. The message they have received from the police is that Shada was murdered.

Against the background of VG’s neglect, this story appears all the stronger:

On 31 August 2019, the Palestinian news agency WAFA published a story written by Ehab Rimawi. It opens with a quotation from Shada:

– When I return home and can be with my family, I will be 17 years old. Then I will finish school and specialise in law so that I can become a lawyer and bring home my two brothers who are still being held by the Child Welfare Services.

These were the words Shada used in her last meeting with her parents, nine months earlier. She was permitted to see her parents only twice a year. During those visits, speaking Arabic was forbidden. The Child Welfare Services wanted control over what the children were saying.

These details appear in the WAFA article, and the reader is left wondering: What is the Norwegian Child Welfare Services attempting to conceal? Why were the children separated, why were they only allowed to see their parents twice a year – VG says four – and why the prohibition on speaking Arabic?

Given the Norwegian media’s preoccupation with everything Palestinian, it is quite remarkable that this aspect of the story is not mentioned.

VG places Mohammed in front of them, but why do they not mention that the burdens imposed upon the family had serious consequences?

The children came under psychological pressure. During one visit, one of the boys attempted to jump from the second floor. He was unhappy with the family with whom he had been placed. As a consequence, he was no longer permitted to see his parents.

The grandfather’s intuition told him that something was not right. Blood ties are strong. Rather than the sentimental narrative of “escaping the war in Palestine”, it was a lack of identification at a roadblock that caused the father to be sent to Jordan.

VG uses “the war” as a prop in the story.

But these are real people with a real history, and now the granddaughter had died in Norway while in a state-run care institution. The grandfather had better instincts than VG.

Grandfather Riziq does not buy it.

– Did someone attack and kill her? How was it possible that she died in a centre whose task was to take care of her?

– We will do everything to bring Mohammad and Ahmad back, and when that happens, the family will return to their homeland after all the tragedies and suffering they have endured.

It was all these things that led Rodgeir Vinsrygg to become legal representative for Shada’s parents. Something was not right. Nor did it seem right to the Palestinian ambassador.

The Palestinian ambassador, Marie-Antoinette Seidin, told WAFA that Norwegian police had informed her that Shada had been the victim of homicide, although it was not clear what had happened.

VG’s “presentation of evidence” resembles a pleading that exonerates the Norwegian authorities and the Child Welfare Services. They discredit Team Shada and pretend to have found the answers. But they have not. They are cheating.

One of those who now recants is Progress Party (FrP) Member of Parliament Liv Gustavsen. On 10 December 2025, she asked a question in Question Time to the Minister of Children and Families, Lene Vågslid: What happens to children who die while in the custody of the Child Welfare Services? Gustavsen now insists to VG that she never believed Shada was murdered; it was merely a general question.

But Gustavsen is easily exposed. Her question explicitly mentioned Shada, but the name was removed by the secretariat before Gustavsen was given the floor.

Someone did not want Shada’s name mentioned from the rostrum of the Storting. Lene Vågslid was thus given an easy task in providing a general, meaningless answer.

One may wonder whether there was an intention behind this. At that time, a meeting was taking place at the Storting between Rodgeir Vinsrygg and his team and Liv Gustavsen. VG’s Marie Golimo Kingsrød attempted physically to force her way in. Why was it so important to be present? Because if the Shada case had been raised by name in Parliament, with demands for follow-up, it could have become uncomfortable for many parties.

That was prevented by striking out her name, and now VG is completing the job.

Gustavsen recants. She was genuinely engaged in the case and was also present at the press conference at Litteraturhuset.

But now she is retreating. That means there is not a single party in the Storting in which a representative is allowed to raise a case that may involve a grave crime.

Gustavsen has probably been instructed to “fall into line”. Sylvi does not want any loose cannons on deck.

VG has spoken with forensic pathologists and experts. But they all agree. They all say the same thing: Nothing to see here. Move on.

The Shada case began to gain momentum when someone found a loose thread – a child died in a Child Welfare institution – and discovered that several things did not add up. VG does not mention that Vinsrygg has served as an expert witness in several court cases and has been involved in the Lillian Gran case. They do not mention at all the great commitment and attention that a number of cases are beginning to attract.

Is it in order to silence them that VG seeks to label everything as “conspiracies”?

The journalists spin a story that is unconvincing. They have tracked down Shada’s friend from primary school in Florø, Fatima. They were together every day. The photographs show a smiling young girl with the warm smile Shada had. Yet VG wants us to believe that Shada was almost a sickly loner:

Some of the classmates VG has spoken to cannot remember Shada uttering a single word throughout primary school.

She mostly wandered around the schoolyard alone.

“It is highly unusual for children to avoid contact to this extent,” the school notes.

The Child Welfare Services nevertheless took all three children and scattered them to the winds. The parents – especially the father – used physical punishment, as very many parents from the Middle East do. The father was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. A very severe sentence compared with sentencing levels in Norwegian criminal justice.

Did Shada want to leave home? No, she wanted her parents to stop hitting her; she wanted to remain at home. Instead of supporting the family, the Child Welfare Services destroyed it. That summarises what they did, and VG attempts to excuse the behaviour of the Child Welfare Services. But the cracks in the story are large.

When the children were driven away, they believed they were going on a cabin trip.

But within the Child Welfare Services the siblings were separated. They were moved to different cities and lived at secret addresses. The brothers were allowed to see their sister at most four times a year.

VG does not ask a single question about the behaviour of the Child Welfare Services.

Instead, they attempt to discredit Rodgeir Vinsrygg. He reacted. He wanted to find the answer to how it could be that a girl died in a Child Welfare institution.

Rodgeir Vinsrygg inspires confidence. Document has had many conversations with him. He could have done some things differently. At times he has said things publicly that he should not have, such as when he identified the owner of the house where Shada died. He has apologised for that.

But Vinsrygg is not the charlatan VG portrays him as. He is a serious, courageous doctor. He inspires confidence. Otherwise he would never have attracted people to his cause.

There have been some missteps along the way. But unlike VG, the unanswered questions still remain, and they are many. VG does not answer them but sidesteps them. They wish to close the story.

Why?

The media are working together. The first to attack was Nettavisen, which targeted Vestland County politician Bente Spissøy.

Politician sent photograph of corpse to colleagues

The media become agitated because the image of Shada was distributed to fellow politicians and shown during a press conference. It appears to be a pretext from media organisations that otherwise have few scruples. There was nothing offensive in the images shown by Vinsrygg and Spissøy.

But this was the opening salvo in the media war against the whistle-blowers.

The purpose is rather too obvious.

The whistle-blowers are to be dealt with and put in their place.

Why do journalists such as Jørgen Gilbrant allow themselves to be used? In other contexts, the press has no problem publishing police documents. Now it is suddenly offensive. Spissøy’s justification was serious.

Spissøy wanted the county council to require that the Ministry of Justice ask the Office of the Auditor General to consider reopening the case.

But County Director Robert Rastad says the documents should never have been sent. Nettavisen then makes the rounds and obtains statements from the other group leaders distancing themselves from Spissøy.

Gilbrant and Heldal describe the Shada case in this way:

The case concerns a Child Welfare case from South-West Norway in which a girl passed away.

NTB distributed a comprehensive report, and its coverage is representative. They state that “the doctor and his team have spread the story”; the word “spread” is odious.

Faktisk.no: They say that Shada (16) was exploited and murdered – the evidence does not match