Norway I.

This is coolbert:

From a prior blog entry:

"NOW FOUND GUILTY AND AWAITING HIS SENTENCING. I assume he will not be given death. The EU nations now totally eschew the death penalty, even for treason in a time of war."

Right! Exactly! The European Union has abolished the death penalty totally. NO MATTER what the crime, you cannot receive the death sentence, much less be executed.

Candidate nation-states, those desiring membership in the EU, MUST FIRST ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY AS A PRE-REQUISITE FOR INCLUSION INTO THE EU!

Norway is perhaps a leader within the EU in advocacy for abolition of the death sentence. Actually a major player on the world stage in this regard.

Sees no need absolutely for the ultimate punishment to be EVER exacted, AGAIN, NO MATTER WHAT THE CRIME, HOWEVER HEINOUS!!

Norway has long had an aversion to the death penalty. Death as a punishment being abolished as early as 1912. And prior to that, the last time a person was executed in Norway was 1876.

Modern Norway has the reputation of being the foremost place on the planet to live. Norwegians are happy, contented people living happy contented lives, the envy of the rest of mankind?

IT SHOULD BE NOTED - - HOWEVER - - THAT IN THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR TWO [WW2], the year - - 1945, the Norwegian was not so happy and contented a person. NOT so "dead set" against applying the death penalty.

"Death to traitors!!" was the motto of the time?

The Norwegian government-in-exile, had reinstated the death penalty for war crimes and treason as a result of the occupation of Norway by Germany during WW2. An occupation aided and abetted by collaborators, the most notorious of which was Vidkun Quisling!!

Quisling and four others were executed for treason, several dozen other Norwegians given the supreme penalty [which was carried out] with all due speed.

"In the course of the treason trials, Quisling, along with two other Nasjonal Samling leaders, Albert Viljam Hagelin and Ragnar Skancke, was convicted of high treason and executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress on 24 October 1945."

[other Norwegians were exectued for war crimes and crimes against humanity]

Quisling and his associates ["quislings"] were held in such opprobrium that EVEN THE NORWEGIAN FOUND THAT THESE PERSONS ["quislings"] MERITED AND DESERVED THE DEATH PENALTY. Persons [Norwegians] normally totally averse to executing a condemned persons, regardless of the reasons, found themselves, in the aftermath of a war where their nation was occupied, more than willing and able to carry out the sentence of death.

Sixty years after the end of the war, the execution of condemned traitors causes introspection and regrets among the Norwegian populace? Hard to say! War makes you do things that in more peaceful times you would not!!??

"Subsequently, these sentences came to be viewed as controversial, as capital punishment had only been reintroduced by the government-in-exile at the end of the war, specifically in anticipation of the post-war trials."

coolbert.