Anders Behring Breivik

Anders Breivik accepted at Norway’s University of Oslo

July 17, 2015
Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has won a place to study political science at Oslo’s university.
The 36 year old admitted killing 77 people when he bombed central Oslo and then went on a shooting spree at a youth camp on a nearby island in 2011.
Breivik has been studying certain course modules since first applying to the University of Oslo in 2013, but he will now be taught as a full student.
He will have no contact with staff or students as he studies from his cell.
In 2012, he was sentenced to the maximum 21 years in prison for carrying out Norway’s worst massacre since World War Two.
This jail term can be extended if he is deemed to remain a danger to society.
The university’s rector, Ole Petter Ottersen, said that Norwegian inmates “have a right to pursue higher education in Norway if they meet the admission requirements and are successful in competition with other applicants.”
Writing on the university’s website, Mr Ottersen admitted that the university had faced “moral dilemmas” about Breivik’s admission.
The rector added that the university had students whose family members had been killed by Breivik. However, he said that the university would abide by its rules “for our own sake, not for his.”
As he studies from his prison, Breivik will be subject to strict regulations. He will be allowed no access to internet resources or receive any personal guidance from tutors. All communication with the university will take place via “a contact person in prison”.
Breivik first applied to study in 2013 but did not meet entry requirements as he had never completed secondary school. Instead, he was allowed to study certain political science modules.
His deadly rampage at a Labour Party youth camp on Utoeya island was found by an Oslo court to have been a premeditated act of terrorism.
He harboured extremist right-wing views and claimed he had reacted against what he saw as a Marxist-Islamic takeover of Europe.

 

Human rights in America: claims and reality

29 JUNE 2015,

The concept of human rights means the ability of humans to exercise their subjective rights in the era of humanism and education, Milli.az reported. Main concept of human rights is that all human beings have equal rights and these rights apply to everyone without interpretation. Although it is supposed that human rights were first mentioned in Europe, exactly in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, passed in France in 1789, long before that the idea of human rights went through a remarkable development path, with human rights charters adopted in England and America. This is why the West, particularly the USA are considered “the cradle of democracy and human rights”, a role model for other countries. In some instances the West, especially the USA, abuse their position to exert pressure on other countries using “violation of democracy and human rights” as a pretext. But let`s look if the rights of people and citizens are perfectly protected in the West, including in America.

“Cradle” of democracy and human rights

One needs just to browse the Internet to see concrete evidence of the West`s poor human rights record. It is a fact that Europe is experiencing growing violation of rights of Muslims, with organizations engaged in anti-Islamic propaganda gathering pace. Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011, is the product of these terrorist organizations. It should be noted that on July 22 Breivik shot dead 69 participants of a summer camp on the island of Utoya, and then declared that Islam should be fought with terror. He also killed eight people by setting off a van bomb in Oslo. As a result of a 12 week-long trial, Breivik was declared insane and got off with minor punishment. Muslims in Germany, Denmark, Belgium and France face similar law violations on a daily basis. As regards the United States, the country joined only three of nine major international human rights conventions. Racial discrimination, xenophobia, prison overcrowding, execution of the mentally impaired is typical of the American public and political system. The Americans have not yet ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“Searching for the enemy within”

The election of black Barack Obama as president boosted the U.S. police`s “search for the enemy within” and increased racial prejudice. Hundreds of people, who joined Occupy Wall Street protest movement against social and economic inequality, were arrested in New York City in 2011. Journalists covering the protests in Los-Angeles, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle and other cities were also arrested, facing police brutality. Three UN reports underlined growing racial discrimination within law enforcement bodies in the U.S. The media are also frequently reporting of U.S. police violence against blacks and Latin Americans.

“I can`t breathe”

The aforementioned can be proved by an incident that happened on Staten Island, New York City, on July 17, 2014. According to The New York Times, on that day police officer Daniel Pantaleo approached Eric Garner, a 43 year old father of six, on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes. After a confrontation the officer wrestled Garner, an African American, to the ground, putting him in a chockhold. Lying facedown on the sidewalk, Garner was saying “I can’t breathe” multiple times. But officer Pantaleo disregarded the plea of Garner, who had asthma. The man was later pronounced dead. But the officer was not indicted. The last words of Eric Garner became the rallying cry for protests in New York City, Washington and other cities. But there was not proper response from the authorities: the case was delayed on different pretexts, and the grand jury refused to indict the policeman who killed an African American citizen of the USA. One of the black American politicians politicized the issue, saying “it is impossible to breathe in this country where human rights are violated”.

American police: “I will kill you”

Another proof that violation of human rights has become a common occurrence in the USA is the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an 18 year old black man, by police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. It was established that in the course of the incident the officer threatened to kill Brown before shooting him. Brown`s mother said the officer fired seven times at her son. The incident sparked protests staged by Ferguson residents, mostly African Americans, demanding the arrest and criminal indictment of the police officer. However a grand jury decided not to indict officer Wilson, provoking weeks-long protests and nationwide unrest. Hundreds of people involved in the protests were detained and subjected to police brutality and torture.

Journalists who became “criminals”

It should be emphasized that journalists covering Ferguson unrest were also tortured by police. The Washington Post and The Huffington Post reporters were detained by police without any reason and taken to the Ferguson police station. An Al-Jazeera reporter saw tear gas in front of him thrown by police when he was trying to go live on air. The reporters, who were soon released, later said they were more afraid of aggressive conduct of police rather than the protesters. Wesley Lowery, a reporter for The Washington Post and Ryan Reilly, a journalist of the Huffington Post, said they were using a McDonald restaurant as a staging area near demonstrations when police came into the café. Officers asked the reporters to show their press passes. Lowery showed his press pass, while Reilly refused, saying police were acting illegally. Lowery and Reilly were then taken to the back of a police car, and their equipment was seized.

“They take our lives for granted”

On April 12, 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American, was arrested by the Baltimore police. Officers brutally beat the man to break his spinal cord. Gray was put in intensive care. He later died at the hospital. Gray`s death sparked mass protest rallies in Baltimore. Fearful of the growing unrest, the government imposed a curfew and deployed the Maryland National Guard to the city. A total of 210 people were detained, some 15 buildings were torched and 100 vehicles were destroyed during the Baltimore unrest. Charlie Walker, a black activist of the Baltimore protests, accused the U.S. law enforcement bodies of corruption, human rights violation and bribery. “Our struggle should not be throwing stones at police, robbing and setting a fire on shops, destroying cars. What we should do is to hit a blow to the power of dollar and stop paying money to corporations. This is the only thing they understand. Money is crucial for them. And they take our lives for granted. We were the slaves of these insects for 400 years. But they have not yet understood that we are not slaves any longer.”

Some 458 people murdered in a year

Apart from Brown and Gray, unarmed Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley and others were shot dead during encounters with police officers because of their being black. In general, the death of unarmed Michael Brown, who was shot dead in Ferguson, provoked a strong wave of civil unrest. Last year alone 458 people were shot dead by police in the United States, spurring nationwide protests and arrests. Police`s brutal treatment of blacks is contaminating the minds of white people in the USA, encouraging them to violence. On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21 year old white man, shoot dead nine people, including three men and six women, at a church in Charleston. All those killed were blacks. Roof was detained and charged with murder on racial grounds and terrorism.

Religious intolerance in the United States has also reached its peak, with anti-Islamic prejudice gathering pace. On February 10, 2015, Craig Stephen Hicks shot dead Deah Shaddy Barakat, a 23 year old student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Dentistry, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. All three students were Muslims and were murdered on religious grounds. The incident was followed by an arson attack on an Islamic center in Texas.Application of laws is more severe when it comes to blacks

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, Dr. Christian Christensen, a professor at Stockholm University, said police violence, racial discrimination has become widespread in the USA. “This has continued for decades. What we saw in Ferguson and Baltimore and nationwide protests is not people`s response just to the murder of two black men, it is a response to police violence, torture, racial discrimination that has continue for decades. Courts contribute considerably to this because the black defendants whose victims were white are two time more likely to receive a death penalty than white defendants whose victims were black. This has been so for more than 15 years. Laws, prohibitions are applied in a more severe manner when it comes to African Americans,” he added.

Illegal control over social networks

Reports analyzing the USA`s human rights record are telling the whole truth about it. UN Human Rights Committee accused the United States of breaching several provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Headed by Nigel Rodley, a British professor, the committee accused Washington of implementing an illegal control over social networks, describing it as direct interference in people`s private lives. The UN committee`s report revealed that the USA is controlling people`s activity in social networks not only in its own area, but also in different regions of the world to instill their ideology on people, exert pressure on and encourage them to violation of law. This spoils and puts at risk private lives of thousands of people. Countries and societies suffer hardships as a result of color revolutions. All these events are resulting in mass death, with countries torn by internal clashes. Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and Libya are best examples.

Prison abuse

In its 2013 report, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China provided concrete evidence of human rights violations in the USA. The council said the US carried out drone strikes in Pakistan, causing deaths of up to 926 civilians. Even Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Washington of breaching international law. The Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation also accused the USA of violating human rights. The Foreign Ministry expressed its concern over violation of electoral rights, prison abuse, child abuse, trafficking in human beings, and other problems in the USA.

Helpless president
Although the U.S. is accusing other countries of violating democracy, human rights and freedom of speech, the country itself is experiencing widespread breach of universal values and norms. The USA is trampling on rights of migrants, religious minorities (especially Muslims). Racial discrimination is widespread in the country, accompanied by violence and death of a large number of people. Meanwhile, the USA`s first black president is watching helplessly what is happening in his country.

Can we rationally debate death row ?

may 4, 2012, source : http://www.southbendtribune.com

If anyone personifies evil, it is Anders Breivik. The 33-year-old Norwegian violently disrupted his country’s usual peace on July 22, 2011, by gunning down 69 mostly young people at a summer camp. A bomb he planted in Oslo killed eight others. He did it all to defend Norway against multiculturalism, he later raved.

Yet, on one point, Breivik is not talking crazy. At his trial, which began April 16, he pronounced a the maximum penalty for his actions — 21 years in prison, or longer if the government meets certain conditions — “pathetic.” He “would have respected” the death penalty, Breivik said. Of course, he won’t get it; Norway abolished capital punishment long ago.

Norway has suffered deeply because of Breivik, and I don’t mean to add insult to injury. But this situation illustrates what’s wrong with banning the death penalty in all cases. If executing an innocent man is the worst-case scenario for proponents of the death penalty, then threatening Breivik with prison is the reductio ad absurdum of death-penalty abolitionism

Anti-death-penalty sentiment is hardly limited to Europe. Last week Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy signed a bill abolishing capital punishment, which means that no future Anders Breivik need fear execution in that state. Sixteen other states have no death penalty; California voters will get a chance to join them in a November referendum.

In the United States, abolitionist arguments are gaining traction, especially claims about the high cost of lengthy death-penalty litigation and the risk of executing people by mistake. Malloy also cited a “moral component” to his decision.

Such practical and moral concerns are at their most understandable in run-of-the-mill convenience-store murder cases, where the risk of error seems relatively high compared with the benefits of punishing murder with death.

But Breivik’s was no ordinary crime. It presents the special case of a cold-blooded massacre of children by a political terrorist whose guilt is unquestionable and who remains utterly unrepentant; indeed, he told the court that he would kill again if given the opportunity.

What is morally worse: putting the author of this bloodbath to death or letting him live, with the accompanying risk — however small — that he might broadcast his message to receptive audiences from jail, or escape, or one day litigate his way to freedom?

There is no scientific answer. To oppose the death penalty regardless of the crime or the consequences of letting the perpetrator live is a consistent and principled position. If Norwegians consider doing so a point of pride, that’s their choice.

In Connecticut, 62 percent of registered voters support the death penalty for murder, according to aQuinnipiac University poll published last month — so it took some political courage for the legislature and governor to do what they did.

But note that the Connecticut law is not retroactive: It does not apply to the 11 men already on death row, including two sentenced to death for a 2007 home invasion in which they raped and strangled a mother, murdered her two daughters and then set the bodies ablaze.

This tells me that the Connecticut politicians who voted to ban future capital punishment still find it hard to argue against the death penalty in every specific case, no matter how ghastly.

The stubborn fact is that death-penalty abolitionism runs counter to one of humanity’s oldest and most persistent moral intuitions: that there should be condign retribution for the most monstrous transgressions.

Even in Norway, Breivik’s rampage caused some second thoughts. Immediately after his crimes last summer, a man named Thomas Indrebo observed online that “the death penalty is the only just sentence in this case!!!!!!“ Indrebo was later assigned as a lay judge in Breivik’s trial and had to be dismissed because of his comment.

That was the right call, legally. But I wonder if the Breivik case will cause more people in Europe to ask whether there really is no place in civilization for capital punishment.

Both abroad and at home, we need less polarized debate, less moralizing — and more honest legislative efforts to reconcile valid concerns about the death penalty with the public’s clear and consistent belief that it should remain available for the “worst of the worst” offenders.