The general secretary of the Labour Party youth wing AUF, Jan Halvor Vaag Endrerud lists, in a post on Facebook on Tuesday, examples of the online harassment against AUF leader Gaute Skjervø.
Norwegian tabloid VG quotes from the examples:
«Cannot understand how Breivik could miss him, a simpler target is hard to find. A huge lump of fat who for the most part only moves his jaw. And out of there comes a lot of lies. He is the born Ape.»
«Release ABB he has more to do here apparently, a number of fat idiots too.»
«Maybe time for Gaute to die. Doubt you’ll be missed.»
«There ought to be a law saying that ones like this individual do not have the right to life.»
«He ought to go about in armour. Violence alarm does not stop bullets.
«The bloke needs to be subjected to a solid dose of degradation violence. Throw in a couple of Muslim anal rapes as well.
It will conflict with many people’s sense of justice that statements of this kind can be made entirely without consequence.
But it bears witness to the fact that the legal protection against individual harassment has today virtually ceased. Since 2015 defamation is no longer punishable as long as it cannot be regarded as threats or personal persecution.
One may with impunity wish for someone’s death, which must be said to be hateful. But individual hatred is apparently not punishable, whereas group-based hatred is.
VG refers to section 185 of the Penal Code:
In short, section 185 makes it punishable to make certain discriminatory or hateful statements. The law describes this as threatening or insulting someone, or promoting hatred, persecution or contempt against someone, on account of:
skin colour or national/ethnic origin
religion or belief
sexual orientation
gender identity or gender expression
disability.
By contrast it is apparently not punishable to express hatred against a solitary individual for what the person in question is, as long as it cannot be linked to group affiliation. That groups have stronger protection against hatred than individuals appears as something of a paradox.
