Fjordman to VG and Aftenposten: “Do the Right Thing and Publish Breivik’s Comments”

From a recent commentary by Fjordman posted at Gates of Vienna:

To VG and Aftenposten: Do the Right Thing and Publish Breivik’s Comments
January 08, 2012

[T]he police investigation has revealed that ABB [Anders Behring Breivik] used many different email accounts and nicknames and left comments on dozens of very different websites, in addition to being extremely active in online games such as World of Warcraft, where he lived in a virtual reality of heroic warfare. Interestingly enough, that apparently includes the online discussion forums of VG and Aftenposten, by far Norway’s two largest newspapers. For some reason, though, they have been suspiciously quiet about what he actually wrote there.

Aftenposten didn’t just temporarily shut down their online debates following the terror attacks, as many Norwegian papers did at that time, but after the identity of the terrorist became known took the drastic step of deleting their entire discussion forum and removing it from the Internet on a permanent basis. This is such a radical move that it resembles panic. It leaves an outside observer wondering: What exactly are they hiding?

VG didn’t remove their own debate forum, but they haven’t said a word about what Breivik wrote there, either. Perhaps they might as well have written that “While he was working on his gruesome terror plan, Anders Behring Breivik repeatedly posted angry comments on VGDebatt….”

[T]hese newspapers and the press in general are always the first to call for “full openness” from everybody else. What happened to practicing what you preach?

I hereby call on editor-in-chief Hilde Haugsgjerd of Aftenposten as well as editor-in-chief Torry Pedersen of VG to follow the example set by the website Document.no and publish all comments Anders Behring Breivik made in the online discussion forums of their own newspapers.

The public has a right to know. If these newspapers refuse to do this, they and the Schibsted media conglomerate, which owns both of them, should tell the public exactly why they refuse to demand from themselves what they demand from everybody else.

Open letter from Fjordman to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg

At Gates of Vienna, well-known Norwegian blogger, Fjordman, responds in an “open letter” to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s New Year’s speech.

An Open Letter to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg
January 02, 2012

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg heads a three-party left-wing coalition government. In his prestigious New Year’s speech that was delivered on national TV over several channels on January 1, 2012, the prime minister said many fine things. He also stated the following:

“The Internet at its worst is when totalitarian seducers are allowed to remain unchallenged in dark corners of the Net. We have to face this with resolve. We shall drive them out with the light of knowledge. Voicing opposition to extremism is taking responsibility for the future….”

I am not sure if I understand what he refers to when he speaks of the supposed “dark corners of the Internet”. As Fjordman, before my name became publicly known, I used to say that I had a hidden identity, but not a hidden agenda. Anybody with access to a search engine, which means billions of people worldwide, can easily find out what I think about issues from German wheat beers to astrophysics and superstring theory to sharia law. My essays are brightly-lit, and they are spread across the Internet on different websites. They are not hidden away.

If people believe we have dark and dangerous opinions, then they are welcome to challenge these at Gates of Vienna or the other nasty “Islamophobic” websites where I publish on a regular basis.

Related post: Norwegian blogosphere responds to Prime Minister’s New Year’s speech