Immigration Stories from Norway

The Norwegian press has two fairly sympathetic pieces up on criminal immigrants today.

The first, from newspaper Aftenposten, concerns the case of Kamal Warsame, a 23 year old from Somalia.

He is currently serving time for drug offences in Hamar prison. It seems that the Norwegian authorities do not want Warsame - but they can't get rid of him either.

Warsame gets out of prison in about a week - and he is dreading it. He considers his cell the only home he has ever really known. Shot three times in Somalia, he has been in Norway for six years, and spent much of that time sleeping in underground car parks and in underpasses.

He was a heavy user of hashish and amphetamines, selling them to fund his own habit.

Now he not only has a criminal record, but no permit to stay in Norway. That means he can't work and he isn't entitled to social security. Instead of sleeping rough, he will become what is known as a 'community problem', outside the remit of the justice system and immigration authorities.

He may get a flat - the authorities are concerned about him falling back in with other drug-dealing immigrants. But what are they to do? He can't stay in prison, though he wants to.

Norway's authorities say he can leave the country voluntarily, but he will not do so. They can't forcibly deport him because of the situation in Somalia - and they say that not being able to deport people who by rights should be expelled is becoming an increasing problem.

If anything sums up the shiftless, criminal futility of mass Third World immigration to the West, it is this case.

Warsame is in a society he can never really be a part of, constantly surrounded by things he cannot have. He refuses to go back to Somalia, but in Norway he has taken six overdoses - not exactly symptoms of a happy man.

The idea that the West can atone for past sins, real or imagined, by importing large numbers of violent criminals who are totally alien and unassimiliable is perhaps one of the most bizarre notions in the history of civilisation.

Warsame is in a strange limbo - and many more will come to be like him, because his situation, whilst bad, can never be as bad as Somalia. They know Norway can't get rid of them.

This creates a cycle of misery for Somalis and Norwegians alike.

The next story is from Nettavisen, and concerns the case of Abbas Butt, 21.

He and his sister have been in Norway for fifteen years. They are not citizens, however, and the Norwegian government wishes to deport them - their asylum claim is invalid because their mother took them back to Pakistan for three years in the late 1990s.

The story was published in Aftenposten last week, and floods of support for the pair came from readers wishing for them to be able to stay in Norway.

The case has a dark side, however; in 2003, Abbas Butt was convicted of a completely unprovoked attack on a stranger, and sentenced to 75 days in jail for legemsbeskadigelse, bodily harm.

An immigration tribunal decided that he could be deported, as any criminal immigrant sentenced to longer than three months in prison is immediately eligible for deportation.

Butt and his sister fought this ruling (at the Norwegian taxpayers' expense, presumably). The ruling for deportation was maintained by Utlendingsnemnda, until 31st May 2005, when the siblings won a lawsuit against the state.

The ruling in Oslo declared that the earlier deportation order was invalid, as Butt now seemed to have gained control of his criminal behaviour. This clearly wasn't the full story, however (forgive the poor translation, courtesy of Google):

In 2007, Abbas Butt was once again in the police spotlight. He is indicted for threats against a 20-year-old woman, as well as for violations of the ban on visits to the woman's mother. He was reported 12 times by the woman and her immediate family. The review terms of liberty, threats, intimidating behavior and repeated violation of the prohibition of visits to the woman, her sister and mother.

Manager meets the 20-year-old woman, her sister and mother in a sheltered and private local. The three say they are terrified by Abbas Butt, so it is not for them to view themselves in a public place. The 20-year-old girl said that she was familiar with Abbas Butt when they went to the same school in spring 2006.

She says that he used physical force and threats to control her. She preferred not to have any relation to him, but says she was frightened to keep him company for long periods.

- I could not tell him the opposite. It was an insecurity that came into me because of everything he did to me, "she says.

The situation between the two escalated sharply 23. March of this year. According to the woman, she was on the way to work at 19.00 at night when Abbas Butt grabbed her and forced her into a car. She says that the journey initially stopped by Grønmo course.

- It was completely deserted there. Bare trees and Mud. I was so scared. I tried to be nice to him then, to come out of the situation. But he took my mobile phone. He said that I should not live. He said that he would shoot me, that he had a bullet with my name on," says the woman.

She cries when she says this. Mother is crying also. The trip went according to the woman further and ended at a petrol station in Spydeberg.

- He stopped only when I opened my eyes to throw me out at speed, "she says.

First came a politipatrulje to the place. Later at night, she was joined by family members of hers from Oslo, who picked her up in the car.

The woman says that she has already seen Abbas Butt, the day after by where she lives. Based on these episodes Abbas Butt had violated conditions of bail towards her, and her sister and mother. The police also believed that the conditions were such to equip the women with violence alarms. An Oslo court heard that Abbas Butt has returned and threatened her three times previously.

In April, when the woman was in Greenland in the Oslo police station to report Abbas Butt for violation of the prohibition of visits, Abbas Butt came to her mother who sat and waited in the foyer. He sat down by the mother.

- I received a text message from mum that he was there. When I hit the alarm, he was arrested by the police inside the station, "she says.

She reacted strongly when she read the article about Abbas Butt and sister in Aftenposten.

- All those thinking: "Poor people!" He is represented as an innocent child, an angel, but I know that he is quite aggressive, "she says.

Neither she or her sister has been shown publicly in the past six years. They say they are driven to and from school and work by their parents. Otherwise, they are not to go outside the home.

- I do not understand why he does this, but he destroys my life. I've started to forget things, even things that happened for only an hour. I feel weak and confused. It is experienced as torture, what he does. It is psychological torture, "she says.

She says she is not in doubt that her life is in danger.

- I know that he is going to kill me, as he says. When I am dead, while he receives a short prison term and gets out again and lives his life, "says the woman.

Does this sound like someone worthy of sympathy? Someone you'd want in your street, never mind your country, if it could be helped?