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- Conservative policy is based on SV proposals

It is SV himself who supports the contentious proposal that the police can imprison asylum seekers for up to 72 hours. FRP supports the little-known SV proposal, while RV's Erling Folkvord believes the party has justified this new discrimination.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

Throughout SV's history, international solidarity has been strong. But so far in the election campaign, the issue has not been correspondingly high priority, despite the promises in the party's work program. When Oslo SV wanted to address the issue of international politics and the situation of minorities, the local team had to print their own brochure. The reason was that SV centrally chose to prioritize such topics in its election campaign material.

It is the prospect of government power, a red-green collaboration with the Labor Party and the Center Party from September 12, which is cited as an explanation for the lack of it.

- Many of SV's members see international solidarity as a core issue for socialists. But this was not central when the three parties were to sum up which points they had agreed on in the last parliamentary term. And the topic has not been prioritized in the election campaign, says professor and board member of Oslo SV, Knut Kjeldstadli.

Red Valgallianses top candidate in Oslo, Erling Folkvord, now warns that the SV is losing its international and solidarity soul in the fight for power and influence. He draws up a so-called Document 8 proposal that was submitted to the Storting on November 23, 2004 by the three SV representatives Heikki Holmås, Geir-Ketil Hansen and Karin Andersen.

During this autumn, the proposal will be finalized in the Storting, after the bourgeois government has submitted its proposal for a new immigration law.

Doc. The eight proposal is in five points, one of which triples the time the Immigration Unit of the Police can hold on to non-returnable asylum seekers: SV proposed increasing the time from one to three days. The proposal is so controversial that it will only be up to parliamentary treatment in the autumn of 8, after the Government has submitted its recommendation.

Ny Tid is informed that key people in SV were not aware that the proposal was put forward in the Storting by the party's elected representatives. SV's proposal has been minimally discussed in the Norwegian public.

The proposal reads: "The Storting asks the Government to submit proposals with regulations that increase the police's permission to detain people who are to be expelled or deported from 24 hours to 72 hours."

Here's how Erling Folkvord, Red Valgallianses top candidate in Oslo, responds to the proposal that has been approved by the Progress Party:

- With the proposal for a kind of "special prison" and 72-hour imprisonment without trial, Heikki Holmås and his two party colleagues took a dangerous and harmful step to decentralize some of the worst features of the right-wing refugee and immigration policy, says an angry Folkvord.

Individual matters govern

The "watchdog" on the left is taking a general settlement with SV's parliamentary group, which he believes has failed the party's soul. He believes that the party leadership and the parliamentary group are pursuing a policy contrary to the grassroots in the party. This is how he believes the consequences will be of SV's proposal to increase the imprisonment of deported asylum seekers from 24 to 72 hours, without a judge being allowed to talk to the prisoner. At the same time as new asylum seekers in Norway get the card down the quick assessment of their asylum applications to 24 hours, the Norwegian police's production deadline for evicted asylum seekers increases from 24 to 72 hours – as long as the SV proposal goes through.

- Erna Solberg strives to be so close to Frp. that she does not lose chooses that path. Now she can both launch proposals that make some of the most disadvantaged refugees B-people and at the same time say that this is just a follow-up of ideas that were launched last year by some of SV's most profiled politicians, says Folkvord.

The background for SV's Doc. 8 proposal 23 November 2004 was the discussion about the so-called "non-returnable refugees", which the government of Kjell Magne Bondevik had decided should be thrown out of Norwegian asylum reception centers.

The SV proposal was so difficult to deal with that the municipal committee had to wait to consider the proposal to the Government to raise the matter for the Storting in 2005. The reason is that several consultative bodies have pointed out that the police's extended rights from 24 to 72 hours may conflict with the European the Human Rights Convention (ECHR).

However, the Progress Party was very pleased with the SV proposal. Fr.p. did not like that "the police have lacked the authority" to detain asylum seekers for more than 24 hours. The FRP's committee members therefore wrote that they are "positive about the police being given an extended power of attorney in this context". Per Sandberg emphasizes that Fr.p. wants to go even further than the SV proposal, by keeping the deportees imprisoned indefinitely. But he says:

- SV's proposal was at least a small step in the right direction. I think they put the proposal in the package to get us to agree to the rest, says Sandberg.

RV's "watchdog", for its part, believes that SV should now take care to pursue populism's errands.

- I myself conduct municipal political work together with several SV members who in the case often agree with RV. There are nice people that I learn a lot from working with. But in the context of voting, they are most often overtaken by the right-wing leadership in Oslo SV's city council group, for example when SV votes against proposals that full-fledged mother tongue education should be a right for everyone. And RV was left alone this spring with the position that the so-called "irreversible" should have the same right as others to receive social assistance after an individual assessment at the social services offices, says Folkvord.

- There are many SV members who are involved in solidarity ground plan work here in Oslo for a non-racist refugee and immigration policy. They have enough support from the majority of those who attend meetings in Oslo SV. But they receive no support for their positions among those who are likely to represent SV from Oslo in the Storting for the next four years.

RV's top candidate in Oslo, Erling Folkvord, calls for a clearer priority and more holistic thinking from SV's parliamentary group. He believes that they too much, like other parties, let their solidarity policy govern individual cases.

He thinks the party is getting more impact for its real politics by being in opposition with Sp. and RV, and rather indirectly support a pure Ap.government.

- If SV wants to prove that they mean business with what they say about international solidarity, then the party should consider strongly whether it does not get more out of this through a life as an opposition party, than as part of a government with the Labor Party. and Sp., says Erling Folkvord, parliamentary candidate for the Red Election Alliance.

Discrimination

Folkvord cites an example from its parliamentary period 1993-1997: In December 1996, the Odelstinget received a number of amendments to the Immigration Act. One of the proposals was a small change in the then section 50, which gave all EEA citizens the right to apply for a job in Norway for a three to six month period.

- We proposed that the four words "covered by the EEA Agreement" should be deleted. Then we would have a law that treated the same as all the immigrants seeking work in Norway. Today's immigration exemption for EEA citizens is discriminatory, almost apartheid. A wall has been set up to block everyone outside the rich Western Europe. If RV comes to the Storting, I hope SV will support our work to change this discriminatory law, Erling Folkvord concludes.

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