NORWAY / НОРВЕШКА
Police receive harassment complaints
Police in Norway have received 24 complaints regarding their handling of the homeless Rroma People, with an investigation now being launched into 10 of these.
Helle Gulseth is the leader of the Norwegian Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs' department for southern Norway.
She told VG, “We will conduct research regarding the other 14 , but we will not make any decisions until next week”.
Bjønnulv Evenrud, secretary of organisation Folk er folk (People are People) said that the complaints fell under three different conditions.
14 of the complaints related to the theft and removal of assets while the others related to wrongful expulsion and removal.
Mr Evenrud believes that not all of the complaints are targetted at individual police officers. He told VG, “A few things can be easily carried out by the rotten apples, but when you are hiring large vans in the middle of the night, it is coordinated. It is not then the individual police officer, but higher up [in the force.”
The saga of the some 200 Roma People, mostly from Bulgaria and Romania, began at the beginning period of this month after they were asked to leave the camp they had set up around Oslo’s Sofienberg church, seeking refuge from alleged police harassment.