(JNS) Norway’s higher education minister indicated that she did not intend to punish a university professor who praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacres in Israel because he had “the same freedom of expression as everyone else,” she told JNS this week.
Norway’s Minister of Research and Higher Education, Sigrun Aasland, said this about Bassam Hussein, a professor of the prestigious, state-funded Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), who on April 21, during a lecture before the Socialist Forum in Trondheim, said that the Oct. 7 massacres were “the most beautiful thing that has happened in our century.”
Hussein’s comments caused an uproar, but NYNU Rector Tor Grande said he would not punish Hussein, citing academic freedom of expression.
JNS queried the ministry as the relevant authority overseeing NTNU, which receives most of its budget from the government.
Aasland did not reply to a question on whether it would punish Hussein or the university, writing instead: “Researchers have the same freedom of expression as everyone else—even when their statements are outrageous. And like everyone else, they must expect to face strong counterarguments in the public sphere.”
The Oct. 7 attack, she added, “was an act of terrorism against Israel and the Jewish population. It involved killings, mutilation, physical, psychological and sexual violence, as well as hostage-taking, carried out by a terrorist organization. Attacking civilians and taking hostages is completely unacceptable. Norway has condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms.”
JNS also queried Grande, the rector, asking whether the university, which had already said that Hussein’s comments did not represent it, had any position on the sentiments Hussein expressed, and whether any sanctions would be imposed on Hussein.
“What Hussein said is clearly contrary to the university’s official position. There is no doubt that the attacks were a brutal act of terrorism, which the NTNU Board has publicly condemned,” Grande said.
He added, “Many people have reached out and asked me to apologize or condemn Hussein’s statement. As rector of the university, it is my duty to uphold the constitutional right of free speech. If there is reason to believe that an utterance is in breach of the prohibition of hate speech, then that is a case for the judiciary system, not for the rector of the university.”
Hussein’s comment, Grande said, “was made by virtue of being a citizen with a background from Gaza. We therefore assess it in light of the general freedom of expression as protected by the Norwegian Constitution, and not as an exercise of the academic freedom of speech.”
Eytan Halon, the chargé d’affaires at the Israeli embassy in Oslo, wrote a letter to Grande urging him to act. “As rector of Norway’s largest university, and as chair of Universities Norway and the Nordic University Association, I urge you to take action to protect your students from the dissemination of support for terror and its glorification by senior members of faculty,” Halon wrote in the letter, which he also posted on X last week.
“When rhetoric can quickly turn into action, I believe that university leadership must also show zero tolerance and take immediate disciplinary action when it comes to the support and glorification of terror,” Halon warned.
Section 136a of Norway’s Penal Code prohibits “publicly encouraging or inciting terrorist acts,” a provision that some legal experts said applies or should apply to praises for terrorist actions.
Hussein told the Adresseavisen newspaper last week, “I do not consider Oct. 7 a victory or triumph, especially not in light of the many victims that day and in the time afterward. The loss of civilian life is deeply tragic, without any semblance of beauty. It should never be romanticized.”
He added: “I think there has been excessive attention paid to the use of an adjective.”
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