Summary and recommendations
The national minorities were victims of heavy-handed assimilation policies until the 1970-80s. The aim was to make the minorities as similar as possible to the majority population. It was a one-way process, where those who were assimilated would be forced to change their basic cultural values and lifestyle, while the majority made no adjustments. Assimilation differs from integration in that the latter involves a two-way process, with both majority and minority adapting to living together.
When the Norwegian authorities abandoned these policies at the end of the 20th century, they made the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and other human rights conventions into the basis for Norway's new minority policies. In this process, five groups were identified as national minorities: Jews, Kvens/Norwegian Finns, Forrest Finns, Roma people ('gypsies'), and the Romani people/travellers.
The Framework Convention specifies minimum standards for the state's policy for national minorities, as well as goals that the state undertakes to achieve. State authorities must facilitate the conditions for persons who wish to identify themselves as a national minority. They must be able to express and develop their identity, their language, and their culture.
As the report shows, the policy has had mixed results. The Framework Convention has not been followed up with national legislation. The language and culture of the minorities are almost invisible in the public sphere and many fear that if they become more visible, they will be more exposed to discrimination, hate speech, and harassment. Hateful speech – regardless of whether it is punishable or not under Norwegian law – has major negative consequences for the groups and constitutes a significant social and democratic problem.
Although persons belonging to the national minorities formally have the same rights as others, many of them experience prejudice and negative attitudes that others do not encounter. In the project on which this report is based, we have spoken to many persons from the groups and found that such problems are far from resolved.
Although they have the status of a national minority, with rights to their own culture and language, many said that it can be difficult to express their identity and learn the language and that the legacy of the previous policy of assimilating the groups still exists. Harassment and incitement are particularly prevalent on social media, but negative attitudes can also be expressed in many other situations. Local authorities often have little knowledge and understanding of the groups' challenges and rights.
For people who belong to minorities, it can be a dilemma: should they risk encountering hatred and prejudice because they express their identity and claim rights, or should they lie low to avoid this? Many do the latter and do not want to identify themselves as a national minority – at least not publicly.
A particular problem for the Jews is that hate speech (and actions) increase with the level of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian authorities and organizations. The war following Hamas's brutal attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 has negative consequences for the Norwegian Jews.
Against the background of Norway's history with assimilation and Norwegianization, the negative experiences people who belong to the minorities talk about, and the prevalence of negative attitudes towards the minorities in the majority population highlighted by various recent surveys, the authorities should work along at least three axes:
(1) They must support and give full acceptance to people who want to live as a minority, both when it comes to safeguarding culture and language and protecting people against discrimination and hateful expressions. Authorities both at local and central level must know the rights that minorities have and learn how to deal with the issues that may arise within schools, health, working life, social support schemes, child welfare and so on.
To gain traction for minority rights at all levels in the Norwegian government structure, a separate law on minorities should be adopted in line with the principles of the Framework Convention. Experience so far suggests that anchoring Norwegian policy in an international convention does not work well enough. Municipal authorities relate primarily to Norwegian laws, not to international conventions.
(2) Knowledge and awareness of the status and rights of minorities must be communicated to the entire population as far as possible. Here, the school has an important task in collaboration with organizations and individuals from the minorities. Organizations that work against racism and hate speech can also play an important role.
Central authorities should support the status of minorities through action plans against hate speech and discrimination. It is positive that the government will work on a new action plan against anti-Semitism, but it should also draw up a general action plan against hate speech with a spotlight on national minorities.
Ultimately, these two points are about getting both society and authorities “used” to fully accept and support the rights for which minorities have received recognition. Such a process will cost something. But it is important to remember that the biggest cost is borne by people belonging to the minorities. When they become more visible and better at making use of their rights, there are many indications that they will also become more vulnerable. Therefore, measures along a third axis are necessary.
(3) There is a need for a low-threshold online service to report on experienced or observed hate speech, regardless of whether the specific incidents have been reported to the police, as Norway’s Institution for Human Rights (NIM) has recommended. The measure is important for several reasons, both to help victims of hate speech find the right complaint mechanism and to create a better overview of the prevalence of hateful expressions.
According to NIM's 2022 survey on attitudes towards Sami and national minorities, there are “very high uncertainty relating to the extent of hate speech towards the Sami and national minorities”. Very few of those who are subjected to such speech complain about it, and few of those who observe it intervene.
In addition, the police should prioritize investigating cases that fall within the provisions of the Criminal Code. The police have several tools, such as the police online patrol, but high-profile cases before the courts will send a strong signal that particularly harmful speech is punishable. It may involve hateful speech, threats, incitement to criminal acts or speech intended to intimidate or harass.
Freedom of expression is – and should be – strong in Norway. But it is not – and should not be – absolute. Legal remedies that are not applied even if the cases on which they could be exist undermine the law's power to educate, prevent and rebuke.