Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik has won part of a human rights case against the Norwegian state.

The court upheld his claim that some of his treatment amounted to "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". After the judgement, Breivik's lawyer, Oystein Storrvik, called for his solitary confinement to be repealed. Breivik, a right-wing extremist, killed dozens of young centre-left political activists in an attack on the island of Utoya in July 2011. Earlier that day, he set off a car bomb in the capital, Oslo, killing eight people.
 In her ruling, judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic said the right not to be subjected to inhuman treatment represented "a fundamental value in a democratic society" and also applied to "terrorists and killers". Breivik had challenged the government over his solitary confinement, which saw him kept alone in his cell for 22 to 23 hours a day, denied contact with other inmates and only communicating with prison staff through a thick glass barrier.
 His prison regime deviated so markedly from that enforced upon any other prisoner in Norway, regardless of the severity of their crimes, that it had to be considered an extra punishment, the judge said.

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