‘Xenophobia Is Highly Rational and Justified’: Police Chief

A Norwegian police chief has spectacularly broken ranks to express his professional opinion that high and sustained levels of crime committed by migrants more than justifies concern about foreigners, and that increasing immigration “leads to more rapes”.

Writing in response to an opinion piece by a philosopher in the Norwegian daily newspaper Haugesunds Avis, Police Inspector Thomas Utne Pettersen argues that while he agreed that rich nations like Norway had an “ethical and moral obligation” to help those in need, those wary of foreigners were not misled.

Justifying his point with the catalogue of regular migrant crimes that police have to deal with daily–even in a nation like Norway where significantly fewer migrants have come compared to places like Sweden and Germany–the officer said he disagreed with scepticism of foreigners as being dismissed as mere cynics.

Expressing his view on the matter, Police Inspector Pettersen said: “People’s xenophobia in relation to this group is highly rational and justified”.

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Pettersen said that in the year of 2015 he personally signed off 2,600 days of custody for detainees in his area–2,200 of which were for “foreign men”. In one Norwegian prison–Ullersmo–he said half of all prisoners were foreigners, up from 30-per-cent in 2014.

The officer also blasted the number of Norwegian children who had been raped by migrants, including an “Afghan asylum seeker convicted of rape of a Norwegian child” and “three Syrian asylum seekers charged with the rape of two Norwegian children”. Reinforcing the point, he cited a study in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, which found that “9 out of 10 who are convicted of violence against children have an immigrant background”.

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