Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Discrimination in education in Norway

Discrimination in education in Norway

Discrimination in education in Norway (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This article (and the other parts of its walled garden: Discrimination in education and Hamideh Kaffash), seem to be part of a campaign that Sedai2014 (talk · contribs) is involved in. See this version of the user page, and also this Facebook page.

The core case is an ongoing trial between Norwegian Police Security Service and the student/researcher Kaffash. NPSS fears that Kaffash and other Iranian students might acquire "knowledge potentially usable in development of mass destruction weapons". One might discuss whether this is a good case, but it is an ongoing trial. It is therefore highly inappropriate to present the case in Wikipedia as a matter of "discrimination in education", since this is the position of one of the parties in the trial.

The article Discrimination in education should also be considered for deletion. This is a relevant subject for an article, but the current content is highly biased with its overweight on iranian students. Orland (talk) 19:10, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

@Orland:This is not accurate. The discrimination in education in Norway is not limited to the trial between Kaffash and NPSS. It is a bigger picture including university admission denial, visa issuance and resident permit renewal refusal over the fear of sensitive technology transfer. Are you aware that the Norwegian Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombud CONFIRMED one of the cases of admission refusal as unlawful discrimination? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sedai2014 (talk • contribs) 20:18, 25 June 2015‎

Being part or not being part of the campaign is not a good reason for deleting an article in my view. As I discussed in talk one concrete example of education discrimination in Norway is referenced in the article where one student is not permitted to HBV due to her nationality according to the Norwegian Anti-discriminatory Ombud. At this stage I suggest modifying the title rather than deleting the whole article.Hkhaledi (talk) 19:48, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

@Orland:Being a Norwegian I would understand that you do not like to see this article in Wikipedia. But deleting this article will not remove the dirt. It is not only the view of Iranian students but many Norwegian organization also protested the practice and spoke out against that.WorldPeaceLove (talk) 20:41, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

There are some very predictable responses to this deletion proposal. The first one is that WorldPeaceLove (talk · contribs), Educationinpeace (talk · contribs) and Hkhaledi (talk · contribs) supports the article. These three, together with Sedai2014 (talk · contribs) are all new accounts, that seem to have been established to work with this/these articles. See also Sockpuppet investigations/Sedai2014.
The second one is the allegation that is a case of pronorwegian patriotism from my side. It is not. As i said in my opening, one might discuss whether or not NPSS has a good case, but this article (and the structure of the other articles) is based on the viewpoints of one side in a trial, that is as far from Neutral point of view as it is possible to get. --Orland (talk) 06:47, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I strongly support the article. It should be kept. Few improvements can enrich the existing content.WorldPeaceLove (talk) 21:52, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Norwegian organizations protesting the discriminatory practice

• Student Parliament at University of Oslo in their resolution
• International Students' Union of Norway
• Student Parliament at University of Bergen
• Industri Energi . They also publicly donated to help hire a lawyer for the Iranians.
• The Interest Organization of Doctoral Candidates at NTNU (DION)
• Association of Doctoral Organizations of Norway (SiN)Educationinpeace (talk) 21:00, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Discrimination or not

Academic environment in Norway generally believes that the way Iranian students are treated is discriminatory. Here are few examples:

Norwegian University of Science and Technology appealed the resident permit rejection decision.

Prof. Jostein Mårdalen and also May-Britt Moser explicitly disagreed with the practice.Educationinpeace (talk) 20:45, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is possible that Kaffash's case has got support. It is good for her, and interesting for the public debate on this question. But the support is still supporting one side in an ongoing trial. Bw --Orland (talk) 06:47, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I support keeping the article as it can simply be reworked to be NPOV. Weegeerunner ^{chat it up} 21:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I also support keeping the article, although it needs substantial revision. A key problem is that the opposing viewpoint isn't public, the case rests entirely on secret evidence, as none of the publically discussable facts of the matter point to anything other than it being a discrimination case. The mere fact that the case rests on secret evidence makes the existence of the article warranted. Those are just facts, whether we like them or not. Also note that the Iranians side of the case is verifiable, PST's side of the case is not. Now, the weak part of the present article is that it emphasizes the ongoing trail, which makes the article less encyclopedic. However, Wikipedia has always had unfinished content, and sometimes, one side the case must be brought forward so that opposing viewpoints are tickled into improving NPOV. This happens all over Wikipedia every day. I say, let the edit wars erupt, but deletion is inappropriate! ;-) BTW, I'm Norwegian, and I've been editing a bit on Wikipedia since it was founded, and I was an editor of the predecessor Nupedia too. Kjetil Kjernsmo (talk) 07:43, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I also support keeping the article. Orland (talk · contribs)'s biased approach to this article is very clear due to her/his nationality. The biased approach resulted in deleting Norwegian version of the article without discussion. As can be seen, Orland (talk · contribs)'s reasoning has nothing to do with the content of the article and references mentioned here. As said before deleting the article is inappropriate and it should be improved by editing. Educationinpeace (talk) 08:33, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

As Educationinpeace says, I havn't discussed the content, because this time it's the scope and concept of the article that is the problem. Anyone can contest my deletion on no:wp; so far noone has done it. --Orland (talk) 11:22, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

:@Orland: I just noticed that you have reported some accounts active in this discussion to be closed. Your reason is that these accounts are quite new and have only shown interest in this debate. I can understand your frustration on pushing your personal opinion  and all your endeavors deleting this article from Wikipedia, but the accounts reported by you have not violated any Wikipedia rules. Please respect the rules and regulations as it is expected from an old user like you. More than that, please be aware that there are at least three old users who have supported  keeping the article with major or minor revision. Having known that the Norwegian translation of this article was immediately deleted by you without any further discussion or TALK shows a lot about your attitude and pushing your personal opinion on this topic. Hkhaledi (talk) 13:17, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Norway-related deletion discussions. lavender|^{(formerly HMSSolent)}|lambast 00:38, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I cannot see that the majority of this article has anything to do with discrimination, and therefor it should be drastically cut down or simply deleted. There is a section about the attempt to introduce tuition fees for foreign students. Higher education in Norway is paid for by the taxpayers of Norway. Most universities of the world require some kind of tuition fee, why should introduction of such a feed in Norway be considered discrimination? There are a lot of grants which a worthy student can apply to for help with the tuition, or take up a loan - which many have to do - to cover tuition and other expenses related to his/her education. No person have a right to be educated in Norway. If Norway consider the person a security risk because of country of origin, then that is a security issue, not discrimination. Norway as a sovereign nation has the right to allow and refuse people access to the Kingdom of Norway. --J. P. Fagerback (talk) 14:46, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:11, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

For a sudden introduction of a tuition fee for foreign students in a society that "free education" is a principle I agree that it is debatable if it is discriminatory or not.

But for the case of Iranian students (and few other nationals) there is no doubt that some students are discriminated, it is just a question if the discrimination is "legal" or "illegal". It is not only about visa, for the case of Mahtab Emami who already migrated to Norway, she was refused to an admission from HBV university college due to her national origin. Equality and Anti-discrimination Ombud (LDO) announced it as "illegal ethnic discrimination":

Sunniva Ørstavik from the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombudsman believes that the rejection case is an ethnic discrimination, and thus unlawful

So as you see it is not only for those who want to enter Norway, it is also for those who have already been to Norway. Hamideh Kaffash and many other students were also working in Norway for a year or so, so it is not a question of sovereignty of Norway to accept/deny visa application, it is about the responsibility to have a justification for a country while depriving people from education and-or expelling them from the country.Sedai2014 (talk) 18:25, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Tuition fee for foreign students is obligatory in many countries. This is not a discrimination but only a tax policy in different countries. On the other hand, there are many Iranian students in Norway who study in different fields, then there is no discrimination against Iranian in Norway. This article and Hamideh Kaffash should be deleted. Arne-Barack (talk) 16:58, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

The way the Norwegian government wanted to introduce tuition fee was severely criticized and disliked by many in Norway and you know that the plan was withdrawn by the government under the public pressure at the end. This is the difference between US or UK and Norway where free education is considered statutory. But as I said earlier, it is debatable if skolepenger stuff is discriminatory or not.

For the case of Iranians students, it is true that not all the Iranian students are yet expelled from Norway and deprived from education. But those who underwent these conditions, were treated differently due to their nationality. I refer you to this article again where LDO clearly stated unlawful ethnic discrimination.Sedai2014 (talk) 18:25, 26 June 2015 (UTC)