Managed migration in Norway
Recent stories
Integration directorate formed
The government has announced the setting up of a new integration directorate to improve conditions for a growing number of immigrants.
25 December 2004 (93 words)
New anti- discrimination enforcement system
A new law to ban discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity or religion and a new enforcement system are to be created.
20 December 2004 (51 words)
Prime minister questioned over Christian fundamentalist links
Opposition parties from the Labor to the Progress Party are demanding that prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik explain his ties to the secretive Fellowship Foundation - a Christian 'brotherhood' which meets in Washington.
9 December 2004 (62 words)
Compulsory Norwegian course for imams in wake of van Gogh killing
Norway's Labor Party has proposed mandatory courses in Norwegian language and culture for those who intend to preach religion after Islamic Council Norway's spokesman Zahid Mukhtar refused a clear repudiation of the murder of Theo van Gogh.
4 December 2004 (180 words)
Immigrants should be forced to learn Norwegian
A leading professor and psychiatrist, Berthold Grunfeldt, has told NRK radio that the country has incurred problems it cannot handle because it has been too soft-hearted on immigrants.
1 December 2004 (140 words)
Minister wants Christian values
Minister of social and labour affairs, Dagfinn Hoybraten has spoken out against a new day care law as 'a formidable attack on our Christian cultural heritage'.
28 November 2004 (125 words)
Progress Party calls for more surveillance of Muslims
The leader of the Progress Party, Hagen, has criticised the parliamentary white paper on security for not going far enough and proposes the infiltration and surveillance of groups that invite fundamentalists and/or those which express views 'that frighten the Norwegian people'.
20 November 2004 (89 words)
One third of dangerous mental patients are refugees
According to figures obtained by the public broadcaster NRK, 30 per cent of dangerous patients at regional mental hospitals at Dikemark in Akersus and Sandviken in Bergen came to Norway as refugees.
3 October 2004 (78 words)
Scandinavia's biggest mosque to be built
Building work has begun in the Gronland district of Oslo, on Scandinavia's largest mosque, which, will have room for 2,500 people when it is completed next autumn.
30 September 2004 (37 words)
Changes on citizenship, marriage and asylum policy
Tougher rules on citizenship announced
24 September 2004 (167 words)
Christian fundamentalist groups come under criticism
A Pentecostal Church in the greater Oslo area has created a controversial revival movement among Muslim asylum seekers and some asylum centre leaders say the church is tricking its many visitors.
14 September 2004 (216 words)
Policing 'marriages of convenience' a priority
The police have joined forces with Norway's immigration agency (UDI) to crack down on what Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) terms the growing problem of the 'scores of would-be immigrants suspected of marrying Norwegians to obtain residence'.
12 May 2004 (102 words)
Outcry after priest proposes converting disused churches into mosques
The newspaper Norge Idag was outraged at a priest's 'incomprehensible' suggestion that instead of renovating the country's run-down churches, they should be converted into mosques.
5 May 2004 (116 words)
First jail sentence for 'preventing integration'
An Oslo court has for the first time ruled that it is a punishable offence to prevent one's spouse from integrating into Norwegian society.
14 April 2004 (258 words)
Language and social studies courses mandatory for immigrants
The government has put forward a proposal under which immigrants must sit mandatory Norwegian language and social studies courses in order to receive a permanent Norwegian residence permit.
1 April 2004 (60 words)
Conservative leader wants immigrants to sign human rights pledge
Cabinet minister and Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg has proposed that by the Autumn all would-be immigrants and asylum seekers, male and female, seeking residence in Norway must sign a human rights declaration confirming that they understand that forced marriages and female circumcision are forbidden under the law.
30 March 2004 (163 words)
Municipal minister calls for modernised Islam
In an interview in November with Aftenposten, municipal minister Erna Solberg said that Norwegian Muslims must modernise their faith, in order to become better integrated into Norwegian society.
4 November 2003 (115 words)
How lack of citizenship rights affect young people
Call to extend citizenship
17 October 2003 (172 words)
Language requirement for citizenship introduced
As part of a revised integration policy, the government is proposing that all adult immigrants in Norway must complete a course in basic Norwegian in order to qualify for a permanent residence permit and, later, citizenship.
10 July 2003 (46 words)
Unskilled labour from Europe sought
In October 2001, the government announced that it would liberalise immigration laws so as to open the door for unskilled labour.
27 October 2002 (53 words)
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