Starting in 2020, immigrants to Norway must display a sufficient command of the Norwegian language in order to be entitled to social assistance. At present, immigrants are heavily over-represented in the list of welfare recipients.
Norway’s Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg has announced stricter requirements for eligibility for social assistance, the newspaper Nettavisen reported.
In 2017, the Norwegian state paid out NOK 6.6 billion ($770 million) in social assistance...
A Norwegian former cabinet minister has been charged with sexually abusing three asylum seekers over a period of several years, prosecution authorities said.
Svein Ludvigsen, 72, was charged with one count of taking advantage of his position as regional governor, and one count of exploiting the asylum seekers’ vulnerable situation to abuse them sexually.
“The prosecution authorities have charged a former politician with the sexual abuse of three people,” the prosecutor Tor...
Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg has issued an official government apology to Norwegian women who were mistreated over World War Two-era relationships with German soldiers.
Up to 50,000 Norwegian women are thought to have had intimate relationships with German soldiers.
The Germans were also encouraged to have children with them by SS leader Heinrich Himmler.
Himmler, one of the most powerful men under Adolf Hitler, favoured Norwegian women, hoping they could help...
The Norwegian government rejects human rights activists' claims that this step violates international rules and undermines integration efforts.
Norway has announced plans to deprive 1,600 Somali immigrants of their refugee status, as their homeland is considered safe enough to return to, the newspaper Nettavisen reported.
According to the Norwegian government, Islamists from al-Shabaab* have been pushed back in Somalia, which despite ongoing battles has evolved from a failed...
While some politicians supported the school's decision to dismiss the Muslim teacher for discrimination against women, others argued that the dismissal itself was a violation of the Anti-Discrimination Act. The man, however, claimed the refusal to shake hands was based on the teachings of Islam in order to create "fewer temptations."
Ekeberg Primary School in Oslo has refused to prolong the contract of a Muslim fill-in teacher who refused to shake hands with his female colleagues for ...
The Norwegian government proposed on Friday a nationwide ban on the wearing of full-face veils, such as the burqa and the niqab, in universities, schools and kindergartens.
France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria have all imposed restrictions on wearing full-face veils in public places.
If passed by parliament, Norway could become the first Nordic country to introduce such ban in the education sector, Finance Minister Siv Jensen said in a...
A Norwegian singer was reportedly deluged with death threats over a video in which a black man portrayed her lover. Sophie Elise, 22, said her parents feared for her safety after comments were left under a YouTube post that included death threats and racist and sexist abuse. The singer, who said the racist abuse showed "it's 2017 but we haven't gone very far", added that she now feared leaving the house. The messages under the video for the song All Your Friends were later deleted.
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A Facebook group for members of Norway's far right has prompted derision online after its members mistook a row of empty bus seats for burka-wearing women. An obviously confused member of the group, which is named 'Fatherland First', posted an image of dark-coloured empty bus seats with the question: "What do people think about this?" And it seems the group's members thought the image was of a bus full of women wearing the burka. To them, it was proof of the alleged "Islamification of Norway...
Norway aims to ban face-covering Muslim veils in kindergartens, schools and universities, the government said on Monday, the latest European nation to propose restrictions on wearing burqas and niqabs. France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria have all imposed restrictions on wearing full-face veils in public places.
Norway's minority government, a coalition of the center-right Conservatives and the populist Progress Party, said it was confident it...
Norway's anti-immigrant Progress Party (FrP) voted on Tuesday to ban circumcision for boys under 16 and bar hijabs in public schools. The decisions were taken in the national annual conference of the FrP, in which the advocates of the circumcision ban claimed it causes "mental and physical harm to children." The third largest party FrP has 29 of the 169 seats in the Norwegian parliament.
Meanwhile, the leader Siv Jensen, in an interview to Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, said that...
Anders Breivik has given a Nazi salute to a court that will rule on whether his human rights have been violated in prison.
Norway’s government is trying to overturn the verdict that it violated Breivik’s human rights by keeping him in isolation. A judge from Oslo District Court said the country had violated a ban on “inhuman and degrading” treatment.
Dressed in a dark suit, Breivik stared briefly at reporters while making the salute but didn’t speak.
Judge Oystein...
One of the leading figures of the child pornography network in Norway received three years in prison for confessing and pleading guilty to the crime.
According to Norwegian broadcaster TV2, the 24-year-man was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison by Bergen County Court for sexually abusing 18 children in Norway.
His victims were children, both girls and boys, between the ages of 13 and 16. The verdict is reportedly based on the rape of three under 16-year-old...
Norwegian police said on Sunday they are investigating a grotesque pedophilia ring suspected of involvement in the abuse of at least 51 people, which includes the abuse of infants and at least one case of a suspect acknowledging abusing his own children. The latest incident is considered one of the largest child sexual abuse cases in the country's history.
Deputy Police Chief Gunnar Floystad said that in they have arrested 20 men so far, with three convictions, in western Norway. The...
The full-face Islamic veil may be banned in Norwegian schools and universities soon, the government announced on Wednesday, amid a wave of increasing Islamophobia in Europe.
Education Minister Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, quoted in the Vart Land newspaper, said the government was seeking "national regulations prohibiting the full-face veil in schools and universities".
Muslim women are rarely seen wearing such veils in Norway, let alone in schools. But the issue has come up recently...
A hairdresser in Norway refused to serve a Muslim woman wearing a hijab.
A Norwegian court has found a hairdresser guilty of discrimination for refusing to serve a Muslim woman wearing a hijab.
The Jaeren District Court fined Merete Hodne 10,000 kroner ($1,200) and ordered her to pay 5,000 kroner in court costs.
Court papers state that Hodne told Malika Bayan during an October visit to the salon near the city of Stavanger she would not serve "people like her, go and...