(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[13. October 2006] Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion Bjarne Haakon Hanssen will introduce 21 this year's age limit on so-called foster marriage to Norway. The proposal is a moderated version of Danish immigration policy and is based on good intentions to stop forced marriage in minority environments. Nevertheless, we fear that the bill will act as a discriminatory special law that affects groups in society far beyond those it is intended to protect.
Statistics Norway on Wednesday released figures showing that only 20 percent of Norwegian women born by Pakistani parents are married at the age of 21 years. This is only half the number of first-generation Pakistani female immigrants and therefore suggests a practice of change. We do not know how many of these marriages are different forms of forced marriage. Today, there is no investigation to prove how the strict rules in Denmark have worked in practice. There is good reason to believe that an age limit will limit immigration. But there is little reason to believe that it will limit the number of forced marriages. Forced marriage affects both 17 and 26.
Forced marriages are already banned in Norway and it is 18's age limit for getting married. The most important thing the government can do is make sure that these laws are enforced. We must never compromise human rights. But we must also never fall into the temptation to violate some of them in order to remedy others.
Putin's Russia
[Freedom of expression] The assassination of Anna Politkovskaya was a political execution and proof of a system of government that in 2006 should be challenged in the most fundamental way. For us at Ny Tid, the murder of one of our regular writers led to the threats to freedom of expression having consequences in our own columns. "It's a miracle that I'm still alive," cinema-goers in Oslo could hear Anna Politkovskaya say in the documentary Coca: The Dove from Chechnya a couple of weeks ago. It is a tragedy that the time of the miracle is over.Freedom of speech is about far more than the right to print jokes of the Prophet Muhammad. Martyrdom is about more than religion. Anna Politkovskaya dedicated her life to telling the truth about President Vladimir Putin's Russia. Now we owe it to her to reveal the truth about her death – and we owe it to her to continue working.
