The Gypsy Case

The following news clip from NRK (the Norwegian State Broadcaster) describes a case in which several Roma adults were convicted of human trafficking. After its errors of omission were exposed, rather than present the issue more honestly, NRK simply removed the clip from its website.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer, who translated the video for subtitling, includes this explanatory note:

This clip is important for several reasons.

It’s important because of the highly ideological and uncritical way basic information of the case is presented; it’s obvious from the beginning that the narrator has a political agenda.

It’s also important because vital information from the ruling has deliberately been omitted. According to the judgment of the Bergen City Court, Mirela Mustaza, the woman who is being portrayed as a victim of institutionalized Norwegian racism in the clip, allowed and facilitated the rape of her 11-year-old daughter back in 2008 when her daughter was forcibly married to another gypsy. The narrator ‘failed’ to mention this very important piece of information, and I’m sure a lot of viewers wonder why this fact was left out.

According to the court ruling, Mustaza’s daughter was raped by her new ‘husband’ on the wedding night while being held down by several grown men. She now lives at an undisclosed location in Sweden and was very upset about the dishonest way facts were presented in the story.

NRK has stated that the reason why they left out the information about the rape was due to the fact that it happened back in 2008, and that it would therefore ‘complicate things!’

Another piece of information that was conveniently left out was the fact that several of the convicted adults indecently assault the children in their care while they were touring Norway and Sweden in 2010. The narrator also ‘forgot’ to mention that some of the children were forcibly married, or rather sold by their families to members of the group for approximately 10,000 and 15,000 euros, hence the trafficking aspect of the conviction.

And last but not least, the narrator failed to mention that the convicted adults and the children in their care were involved in theft and scams that pocketed for the group several hundred thousand NoK, which was then wired back to Romania. This refutes the claim made by the narrator that the members of the group are poor and vulnerable.

Another important aspect of this case is that the Norwegian media didn’t bother to react, nor did they attempt to refute the information presented in the story. This is grotesque, considering that the majority of the big newspapers in Norway covered the so-called ‘gypsy case’ when it was before the court in Bergen in 2012. In other words, the MSM was aware of the basic facts of the case, but deliberately chose not to raise the matter.

This could of course arise from the fact that the quality of journalism in Norway leaves a lot to be desired, or that the media in Norway are mostly left-wing and choose to downplay incidents that go against their political beliefs, or a combination of both. This particular case only received MSM attention when Document.no picked up on it and started making some noise. It took almost two weeks before the MSM in Norway paid any attention to it.

The main reason for this deafening silence is a concerted effort on the part of certain strata of the political establishment to counter the massive public outcry to the Gypsy invasion of Norway, an invasion which has seen petty crime skyrocket all over the country. In some of the more sickening cases, Romanian and Bulgarian gypsies have violently assaulted very old people and stolen their valuables.

Those brave people who have voiced their opinions despite the official intimidation campaign have quickly found themselves at the receiving end of the very effective Norwegian smear machinery, and have been branded ‘racists’ by the MSM. I suppose it is ‘understandable’ to a certain extent that the MSM wanted to downplay this case, as it paints a very different picture tan the glossy fairytale story about ‘poor and honest oppressed people’ who are simply trying to make a better life for themselves in Norway the ‘narrative’ that they, the MSM, have been force-feeding us for such a long time.

NRK, the state broadcaster which aired the clip, is financed through a compulsory yearly fee which has to be paid by anyone who owns a TV set in Norway. More and more people have finally begun to realize that it’s morally wrong to demand that ordinary Norwegians finance a media outlet that is so blatantly slanted politically. And this is by no means an isolated incident. In the 1980s and ‘90s news clips like this were commonplace, but back then NRK and the leftwing Norwegian MSM enjoyed a literal media monopoly where critical voices were persona non grata.

Thankfully, it seems that conservative independent media outlets in Norway have finally managed to gain enough strength to make a difference. Let’s hope that NRK and the MSM start paying some attention and see the value of unbiased and honest reporting.

Many thanks to The Observer for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for subtitling this video:

Transcript:

00:00  
00:08   I haven’t done anything that would warrant a prison sentence of 2 years and 4 months.
00:12  
00:16   I pray that justice will prevail. I haven’t done what I am convicted of.
00:20   I hope with all my heart that those who are familiar with the history of the Gypsy people believe me.
00:24  
00:28   A widow who has done everything she can to prevent her children from starving
00:32   or a human trafficker who has forced her children to steal,
00:36   beg and sell jewelry on the street.
00:40   Bergen County Court concluded the latter and convicted her of human trafficking.
00:44   I did everything I could to take care of my children.
00:48   I took my daughter to Norway so that I could protect her.
00:52   We meet with the 38-year-old at the beginning of 2013.
00:56   The mother of three hopes that this will be the year when everything changes,
01:00   the year when the Norwegian courts will finally believe her.
01:04   That she will be acquitted in the court of appeals and be able to return home.
01:08   Now I am waiting for the appeal. I’ll have to try and keep it together until this is over.
01:12  
01:16   This is Bobi. I look at my children every day and cry.
01:24  
01:32   Caineni Mari is 2500 km from Bergen prison.
01:36   That’s where Mirela Mustatza is from.
01:40   Only Roma people live in the village.
01:44   They constitute the bulk of Romania’s poor.
01:48   Most of them live in villages like this one.
01:52   I miss my mother. It is very difficult without her.
02:00   Arrabo was 15 years old when his mother was arrested in Norway.
02:04   He has had to survive on his own in Romania since then.
02:08   It is not true that our mother exploited us.
02:16   This is how our families live. We don’t want mummy to do all the work.
02:20   We travel together and we work together. We survive by selling rings
02:24   It has been like that for hundreds of years.
02:28  
02:32   He left school despite only being 17 years old.
02:36   After his mother was imprisoned he can no longer afford to pay for the transportation to school,
02:40   nor can he get a job.
02:44   We are gypsies. We are different. We don’t have very much education.
02:48   It’s hard to get a job. When people realize that we are gypsies they refuse to hire us.
02:56  
03:00   In 2010, a group of Romanians were arrested in Bergen.
03:04  
03:08   They were all related. In 2012 the trial began. Police suspected that the adults were exploiting the children.
03:12   They exploited them because they were in a vulnerable situation,
03:16   and because they were tasked with carrying out criminal assignments such as stealing
03:20   and selling fake gold items, which is fraud.
03:24   It’s exploitation with the aim of obtaining money for the defendants.
03:32   Mirela Mustatza, her oldest son Bobi and four other relatives
03:37   stood accused in the biggest human trafficking case in Norwegian history.
03:41   The trial ran for 12 weeks; 130 witnesses testified in the case.
03:45   Is this human trafficking?
03:49   We don’t consider it human trafficking.
03:53   This is a traditional way of life for gypsies.
03:57   They bring their kids along when they travel.
04:01   They sell gold and they beg for money which then is shared with the community.
04:05   This is not exploitation.
04:09   Experts on Roma culture testified in court that they don’t consider it human
04:13   trafficking when Roma people travel in family groups with their children
04:17   or nieces and nephews and sell jewelry, despite the children’s participation in the selling.
04:21   One expert referred to the case as a big culture clash.
04:29   Bergen County Court disagreed. The court found that the children were in Norway involuntarily
04:33   and that they had no opportunity of getting out of the situation they were in.
04:37   All six defendants were given prison sentences.
04:41   This is a unique case. This is as far as I’m aware the only case
04:45   in Norway, in Scandinavia and Europe
04:49   for that matter, of such a character and where a conviction was reached.
04:53   No one wants a society where individuals are allowed
04:57   to define what crime is and be exempt from prosecution because they don’t consider it to be against the law.
05:05   Nobody wants that kind of society. And the Roma people have to comply
05:09   with Norwegian law when they are in Norway.
05:13   All the women appealed their verdicts; Bobi and the other two men did not.
05:17   Bobi has served his time and is now back in Romania.
05:21   He says that he is innocent and that he did not dare to lodge an appeal.
05:25   He had to get home as quickly as possible to take care of his daughter.
05:29   He convicted us of human trafficking entirely without reason. Look, here is my wife.
05:33   Do you really think that she is a victim of trafficking?
05:41  
05:45   It’s my mother. It is Mirela. She calls home a few times a month.
05:49   When are you coming home?
05:57   Don’t be sad.
06:01  
06:05   (no sound) also wants to talk with her mother in law.
06:09   The woman who is convicted of exploiting her.
06:13   Don’t cry; soon they let you out. You didn’t do anything. You are innocent. The truth will come out in the appeal case.
06:21  
06:25   This should have been the story of Mirela Mustatza and her struggle to be believed
06:29   and acquitted in the court of appeals.
06:33   A story about how a higher court would decide whether it is a criminal offense to take your children to
06:37   Norway and raise money for the family in various ways, or if it is just a part of the Roma peoples’ culture.
06:45   But in Bergen Prison something has happened since the last time we visited her.
06:49   Just before the appeal case was scheduled to start on Monday Mirela change her mind.
06:53  
06:57   She decided to pull the appeal. Today the two other women did the same.
07:01   Consequently there will be no appeal case.
07:05   She does not believe that she will get a fair trial.
07:09   And she has decided to live with the conviction which she believes is deeply unfair.
07:13  
07:17   In a month’s time Mirela will have served her time and be able to travel back to Romania.
07:22   A new trial would take too long and she could have risked an even harsher punishment if the fight for acquittal had been unsuccessful.
07:30   Mirela says she cannot bear the thought of being incarcerated any longer far away from her family.
07:34  
07:38   I am concerned and I think it is frightening that this conviction .
07:42   won’t be challenged, and I am worried that a precedent has been established and that it will be used in future cases.
07:50   When Mirela returns home to her village there won’t be a job waiting for her.
07:58   Despite being convicted of human trafficking, she’ll soon have to leave Romania again to raise money for her family.
08:02   The kids are coming along with her. That’s how the Roma people live their lives.

 

Transcript of the concluding text:

This clip was originally aired on Dagsrevyen [the evening news] on Saturday, January 12, 2013. The clip received heavy criticism because it contains several factual errors, and significant details have been omitted from the conviction in what was dubbed the “Gypsy case” by the Bergen County Court in July 2012.

The news editor of NRK, Stein Bjøntegård, later wrote in a statement;

“We acknowledge that several aspects of the conviction are of such a serious nature that the report gives a false impression of factual events.

“We agree that the report in its current state should never have been aired.”

On Tuesday, January 22, 2013 NrK removed the entire news broadcast; thus the Roma news story was deleted from NRK’s online archive.

The trade publication Journalisten has decided to publish the clip for the sake of future media criticism of the news story. Editor Helge Øgrim justifies the publication as follows: “Decisions should be scrutinized, especially those taken by the country’s largest media company. When this opportunity is taken away, it is reasonable to ask whether the interest of NRK’s own reputation has weighed heavier than the interests of those mentioned in the clip.”

For those who read Norwegian, here’s a copy of the Court’s indictment of the defendants as presented during their arraignment.

2 thoughts on “The Gypsy Case

  1. re: “The main reason for this deafening silence is a concerted effort on the part of certain strata of the political establishment to counter the massive public outcry to the Gypsy invasion of Norway, an invasion which has seen petty crime skyrocket all over the country.”
    Perhaps another underlying reason is to prevent exposure of corrupt Norwegians involved in soliciting children or benefit from protecting those who solicit these children. It’s not difficult to imagine those politically in bed with one of the sickest cultures on this planet actually practice getting in bed just as they do.

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