International Students’ Union (ISU) of
Politiets Sikkerhetstjeneste – PST
(Norwegian Police Security Service (NPSS))
Information on the newspapers about the names of international students being given to the intelligence police:
Most of the registered/listed
students are students from Asian, African and South American countries. Students
from
- This is making the whole group suspicious, says Arvid Humlen. He is the leader of the Union of Advocates for asylum and foreign(ers) rights. He says that the Intelligence police cannot request for such information without concrete suspicion.
Also ”førsteamanuensis” at the
Institute of comparative politics, Torstein Hjellum, gave his reaction
on the issue: In his opinion, it is a problem that the university is working
together with the police in such a way. The police should have been able to
get this information using other means. The students who are registered at
the university (or those studying in
The leader of the Intelligence Police in the district, Steinar Karlsen, replied to this by saying that it would have cost them more work to get this information from other sources. He also says that the law regarding foreigners paragraph 45 gives the right to request for such information.
What will they use this list for?
The
Parliament has planned to prevent the spreading of technology, which can develop
weapons of mass destruction. The Intelligence Police are a group, which will
contact students in order to examine/inquire what kind of studies and research
they are doing in
Will they contact all the students?
Not necessarily all. We are prioritizing, says Karlsen.
Does it mean that you will request for list of names of foreigners, who have been employed in Norwegian companies?
We can also do that with other institutions in the community. But I cannot tell if we can get access to list of names from private institutions, says Karlsen.
Other sources (in Norwegian)
http://www.studvest.no/200403/ytringar.asp: Big Brother watching you, if you are not “Western”
http://www.studvest.no/200403/nyhende3.asp: Delivering all students for surveillance
Facts on the “interesting” students: here is the list of study areas, which the intelligence police think they will find the most “interesting” students:
Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biotechnology, Genetics, Microbiology, Matallogy* (Metallurgi), atomic physics, electronic technology, Styringsteknikk (no idea what that is!) and robot scientists (Mekatronikk (robotvitenskap))
After it happened in
The rector admitted that the University was given out the information (thought he was a bit surprised that nobody informed him about it before he started investigating the case).
The following article documents the agreement between he students and the University administration.
This issue went down for a while and during the summer new information came out. The article in VG appeared in the middle of July (read English translation here, and a related article)which informed that PST had a meeting with the University of Oslo asking the professors to look after the students from particular countries (this was organized as some kind of a training/seminar for the staff at the University).
After this article in the paper Isu together with NSU has
asked for the meeting with the Ministry of Justice. Before the meeting with
the ministry we happened to have a meeting with PST itself which was on the
2nd of august in
The representatives from the PST presented the case, which was rather different from the way it was described in the media.
The main target of PST (according to PST) is to prevent export
of the mechanism that allows building weapons of mass distractions. PST described
the meeting with the
The questions that were raised.
What kind of information they were asking the university to
provide in early winter (case with
PST was informed about:
- The situation about the negative reaction from the side of the international students on the actions of PST.
- The problem with the interpretation of the second hand information via media.
- The drawbacks of the criteria for the student to be suspected.
- Open discrimination of the students from the particular countries(the way students see it and feel).
- Lack of the information to the student organization, which causes misunderstanding between the authority and the students.
-
Difference in the police security service in
different countries and thus the attitude to the action of the PST in
Agreed upon:
- PST took our contact information and promised to send the first-hand information to the student organization (which will be forwarded to the local branches)
- PST will consult with the University if it decides to publish any criteria for the suspect of student or any other delicate information.
PST was also invited to the ISU National meeting and you will have an opportunity to ask them the questions you might have.