Former Norwegian justice minister lashes out at Conservative leader on Facebook

Former justice minister and deputy leader of the Progress Party, Per Sandberg, has launched a sharp attack on Conservative Party leader Ine Eriksen Søreide on Facebook, TV 2 reports.

“Ine! Shut up,” Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post, responding to Søreide’s criticism of a Progress Party (FrP) adviser’s remarks about Pakistani immigrants. The comments follow revelations that FrP adviser Hårek Hansen referred to Pakistanis as “minus variants” and suggested they should not have children in Norway during a recorded conversation with TV 2 journalists.

The exchange took place at a bar in Oslo the night before the party’s national conference. The journalists, who identified themselves as press, made a covert recording of the conversation, which TV 2 published on Saturday.

Søreide had earlier told Dagbladet that “racism has no place in Norway,” adding that former immigration minister Sylvi Listhaug should “call a spade a spade.” Sandberg dismissed this as hypocrisy, writing: “If I had secret recordings from a night out with pleasant Conservative people, Hårek’s statements would have been a breeze.”

Listhaug initially avoided labeling the incident as racism but later distanced herself from Hansen’s remarks following widespread criticism.