Anders Behring Breivik, Norway Murderer, Wins Human Rights Case

An anonymous reader writes: Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has won part of his lawsuit against the state over his solitary confinement in a high-security prison, the Oslo district court ruled on Wednesday. Breivik, who killed 77 people in a shooting rampage and bombing attack in 2011 (the country's worst acts of violence since the second world war), was served with "inhuman or degrading treatment," the court found, adding that his conditions must be eased. The court said that the prison violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Brevik had noted that "solitary confinement, as well as frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed while moving between cells, violated his human rights." The court, in addition, also ordered the government to pay legal costs of roughly $40,600 for the right-wing extremist. The Guardian reports, "Although Breivik is detained in a three-cell complex where he can play video games, watch TV and exercise, judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic of the Oslo district court ruled that the Norwegian state had broken article 3 of the convention. The prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment "represents a fundamental value in a democratic society", she said in a written decision. "This applies no matter what -- also in the treatment of terrorists and killers."

Comments

Huh

[ShooterNeo]

Obviously, in the USA (and most other countries), they would treat this man far worse. Most places he would have been executed.

With that said, while I'm not in favor of harsh punitive treatment in prisons IF it doesn't help prevent crime, nothing in the article sounds unreasonable. He is a dangerous killer - he killed 77 people. It's not unreasonable for his jailers to try to prevent it from becoming 78. He's so dangerous that making him wear cuffs when moving him between cells and preventing him from coming into proximity with other prisoners seem like reasonable precautions.

Isolation is torture - you might argue he deserves it - but maybe they could let him communicate with other prisoners without physical contact being possible? The lives of the other prisoners and the guards do need to be protected.

And they seem to have given him a treadmill, a video game system, a TV - a lot of stuff to ameliorate the isolation. They'd never do this in the USA - he'd be probably in a tiny cell waiting in silence for his execution.

Thus proving his point

[Hentes]

This just proves Breivik's point that Norway is too left-wing. I'd love to live in a utopian society where we can be just nice to everybody, where everybody's needs are covered and punishment is unnecessary. But in the real world, there will always be nihilists like this guy who ruin it for the rest.

Re:Rule of law

[TWX]

He his human. A human murdered those people. You are literally de-humanizing him because you don't want to accept the fact that another human, much like yourself, committed horrible crimes. He deserves to be treated like a human. That's the difference between us and his victims.

See, while he's homo sapiens, there's a point when the monstrosity of the crime committed, coupled with the complete lack of doubt that he was the perpetrator, is why I do not support ridding the world of the death penalty. I don't want that penalty to be one of retribution though, I want such a penalty to be akin to putting animals to sleep.

I don't necessarily support the death penalty for one-time murderers, especially those who personally knew the victim, as there are cases when the homicide committed was essentially the final step in a series of escalating events by both people. Such a murderer is probably not going to kill anyone again as the circumstances that led to the murder were extraordinary.

I am much more in favor of the death penalty as an option when the murderer kills people that are unknown to them, or are little more than casual acquaintances. That shows a person that's willing to kill for no reason, rather than at least having a reason like in my previous example. Someone willing to kill for no reason once may well be willing to kill for no reason again.

Re:Rule of law

[TWX]

But you've failed to deal with all the other arguments against the death penalty.

For a start, execution is more expensive than long-term imprisonment. (If you doubt this, do some reading.)

I am not calling for this for a cost savings. I am calling for an executing for someone like this because the real danger the individual poses outweighs everything else.

Executing nutters like this doesn't act as an effective deterrent, as crazies can't be deterred.

Again, I am not calling for executing this person because of a deterrence effect. I am calling for this person's execution because of the real proven danger this person presents.

There's also the issue of accidentally killing the wrong person, which is always a risk with the death penalty, but admittedly doesn't seem like much of an issue in a case like this.

Exactly, it is not a danger in a case like this. As far as I am concerned, it would be acceptable for the issue of execution to be forwarded up to higher courts in a given nation. The court under which the convict was originally tried is probably not as-able to determine the sentence. Have an intermediate court review the conviction without a specified sentence to determine if the convict's special circumstances warrant execution or not. Choose to recommend, and auto-appeal this to the high court for final decision. Then let a combination of the prosecution and law enforcement make requests to determine when the execution will occur, based on any other pending cases, and then schedule it. If either court finds against execution, the original court proceeds to conventional sentencing.

Spree killers and serial killers would basically be the only parties for whom this would apply. The killer either needs to kill more than one person in short order, or needs to kill more than one person over time.

Farmers and herders

[Okian Warrior]

People in general are horrible evil animals.

False. The Breviks of this world are an exception to the rule. Humans evolved to cooperate. Those who didn't pull their weight were generally less fruitful in the reproductive stakes and those anti-social traits remain rare.

Actually, that's not *entirely* true either.

Humans evolved into two categories, roughly "farmers" and "herders".

Farmers don't have to worry about someone stealing the fruits of their labor. No one's going to steal their crops unless they take the time and effort to harvest them, so the farmer doesn't have to worry too much about other people.

So farmers tend to be more easy-going, more forgiving, more intelligent (geometry, long-term planning, surveying), and more cooperative. It doesn't hurt you if your neighbour succeeds, so it's OK to help out when he needs it.

Herders worry about their flock being stolen. Anyone can steal their life's work overnight, or kill them and take the herd in an afternoon. They're always on the lookout for the other herder who wants to get a leg up by easy means. Your neighbour competes with you for grazing space, so helping him diminishes your chances.

So herders tend to be confrontational, quick to anger, and violent. They present a "don't mess with me" attitude to show the other herders that they can't be taken advantage of. They have have a highly evolved sense of honour, ritualized revenge, blood feuds, and massacre entire families.

(Studies on Americans show that the "quick to anger" trait can be predicted by ancestor type, and remains even 300 years after your ancestors came to America.)

And so we have interesting situations like the blue hills of Tennessee which were settled mostly by herders. Rocky, grassy area good for herds but not especially good for farming.

...and blood feuds (think Hatfields and McCoys) resulting in thousands of deaths over the course of a couple of decades.

You can paint certain people as "monsters", but it's not quite as cut-and-dried as that.

Some people evolved to be confrontational - that's all.

Re:Farmers and herders

[Okian Warrior]

At first I thought this was a clever Islamophobe troll, given the general quality of the comments lately, that was going to conclude by claiming that Christians and Jews are the farmers and Muslims are the herders. [...] Then I looked up and saw your nick, so I kept reading.

I cannot for the life of me find the book that presents this theory. It might have been this one. I think this might link to the original paper somewhere.

The study had students fill out a form and then walk down a long corridor to submit the form to the researcher. Along the way they had to slide past another student moving a locker.

After sliding past, the student moving the locker mumbled "asshole" under their breath. When the student got to the end to deliver the form, their stress hormones were measured.

(The student moving the locker was in on the research, and the student delivering the paper wasn't aware of any of this.)

The study found that people whose ancestors were farmers tended to let the insult go, while people whose ancestors were herders were more apt to take offence.

The book was quite engaging, especially the sections about the hill people of Tennessee. We only hear about the Hatfields and McCoys, but there was apparently a *lot* of killing going on in those small communities. Something like 14% of *everyone* died by violence in that small area during that time.

[Will's Mom:] “Die like a man, like your brother did!” She belonged to a world so well acquainted with fatal gunshots that she had certain expectations about how they ought to be endured. Will shut his mouth, and he died.”

It puts an interesting perspective on human behaviour.

Re:Rule of law

[Ghostworks]

He his human. A human murdered those people.... He deserves to be treated like a human.

Well said! Now, let's take away his exercise bike and X-Box, and throw him into a shared cell in the rape factory, the way his basic human dignity demands!

Re: Rule of law

[sg_oneill]

Not in Europe, and European Christians wouldn't consider anyone reading the bible literally a true Christian, more a Muslim Christian if anything, because what separates Christians from Muslims is that they read their holy book literally.

Islamic theology isn't "what in book=true. what not in book=shaitan". Theres a long long history of islamic theology based on interpretting the quoran as a symbolic and poetic document full of allegories and metaphors.

Just because some nutty goddamn jihadis seem to have skipped that part of theology class, doesnt mean super-fundamentalism is a feature of all islam.

Hell, look at the sufis. Its *all* symbolism for those mystical cats.