More refugees are subjected to espionage

Refugees who are granted residence in Norway subjected to monitoring and intimidation from home.

 We can not quantify, for here is the big unknown. However, we find that the extent of refugee espionage increases in line with that more refugees to Norway, says communications director Trond Hugubakken Police Security Service (PST) to Our Country.

In the new report "Open Threat Assessment 2014" writes PST that intelligence services of foreign states are active in Norway. While some try to steal military and technology secrets or information that can be used to strengthen interests in negotiations, some countries' intelligence services concerned with "identifying and weaken the dissident support for the opposition in their country." In the corresponding report for 2010 said the PST that 19 countries had spies in Norway.

Very scary. Regarding refugee espionage says the PST that intelligence officers are "representatives of repressive regimes, and their presence and mapping work in Norway is often perceived very intimidating, especially for dissidents.These states operative effort against regime critics in Norway, will persist in the coming years. " In last year's report said the PST that more states will "attempt to map, threaten and intimidate dissidents and political activists who stay here."

- Why is it difficult to say anything specific about the scope, Hugubakken?

- Refugees who are victims of espionage reports not to the police. What most exposed to such surveillance is that they come from countries where they do not trust the police.Therefore enroll refugees nor from the PST, the police or immigration authorities in Norway about such Espionage, they do not trust, says Hugubakken.

- Is this an appeal that those exposed to such espionage should report the circumstances?

- Yes, you might say.

Several of the issues PST registers is via the media.Refugees are openly or anonymously through and talks about surveillance. But the reviewer does not matters to PST or local police.

"We have a shared responsibility to ensure that everyone in Norway have the same democratic rights. Refugee Espionage threatens those rights, "writes the section chief Erik Haugland PST on the service's website.

Tightens grip. Without wanting to name a few countries specifically says PST that "some of the states involved in refugee espionage in Norway, the past year has tightened further on freedom of speech in their own country." From earlier, we know that countries like Ethiopia and Iran to monitor citizens who have fled the country.

In a report from 2012 writes Landinfo - Immigration Management Country of Origin Information - it is their impression that "the government of Ethiopia has good record of people associated with opposition parties in exile."That same year reported Ethiopians demonstrating in Oslo Cathedral that came into strangers and took pictures of them stayed in the church.

In 2007, increased PST Pentecostal church in Philadelphia Oslo to reveal any hidden cameras in the building. A returned Iranian told that he was called in for questioning by the religious police in Iran that could show photos from adult baptism in Philadelphia. The man had converted. PST did not cameras

• Police Security Service (PST) has mapped how refugee espionage practiced in Norway. The list of instruments says that some countries will stop at nothing to get information or exercise control:
• • Put pressure on the family in the home country to control fugitive.
• • Send intelligence agents to Norway to conduct surveillance.
• • Press refugees to act as informants.
• • Obtain information from refugees computers.
• • Using staff at the embassy in Norway as agents.
• • Enlist informants in reception centers or submitting false asylum seekers.
• Last year, a Sudan sentenced to one year and two months in prison for having spied on Sudanese in Norway. From 2010 to 2012 the man had tried to gather information about the Sudanese refugees' personal relationships under the guise of self to be a refugee from Sudan, according to the ruling of the Oslo District Court.
• - This is the first trial in which someone has been convicted of espionage refugee in Norway, says Vice President Trond Hugubakken in PST.
• Sudanese were convicted under the criminal law section of refugee espionage, which has not been used since 1973. He must also withstand a withdrawal of 108,500 kroner. In the legal ruling states that the court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant has "sought to gather information" on various issues. These he then delivered to an intelligence officer at the Sudanese embassy. During the trial claimed Sudanese national to his innocence.