Norwegian prison found guilty of religious discrimination

A prison has been found guilty of religious discrimination after serving Muslim prisoners pork without informing them about the content of the food.

The case was first reported by the newspaper Vårt Land, which referred to a decision from the Norwegian Anti-Discrimination Tribunal.

The Norwegian Equality and Anti-Discrimination Tribunal is purely a complaints body that makes decisions on specific complaints of discrimination and harassment submitted to the body.

The tribunal believes that the prison did not comply with good routines for controlling the food – and has discriminated against the inmates based on religion.

The prison regrets that inmates experienced being discriminated against because of their religion and assured that this was not the case. It stated that the prison wants to meet the needs of all prisoners. Although routines initially work well, human error can occur, according to the prison.

Human error?

The tribunal emphasized that human error can occur and that certain errors can occur without it necessarily being discrimination. 

“In the case in question, however, the routine failure was too extensive for the serving of the pork to be explained by an isolated, human error,” the Discrimination Tribunal stated.

The prison in question has said that it is willing to look more closely at its food routines and assess whether additional measures can prevent such mistakes from happening again.

It is not known which particular prison was found guilty of discrimination. 

Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews

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