Norwegian Men’s Rights Activist blogger Eivind Berge, known for his violent rhetoric and rape apologia, has been arrested for death threats against police.
Not too surprising, given that he once announced on his blog that “[k]illing at least one cop is on my bucket list.”
Here are some Google-translated details from a news account here:
The right-wing extremist and anti-feminist blogger Eivind Berge has been arrested for having encouraged and glorified the killing of policemen. The police have found both ammunition and textbooks in use of explosives at Berge.
The police regard the threats as an invitation to others to kill police officers, but also feared that he would commit the acts themselves shortly.
He was evidently arrested on Wednesday. According to this story — at least as far as I can tell from the obviously crude Google translation — he made a specific threat to kill a police officer this Saturday:
Berge also writes about how he was planning to attack a policeman with a knife on a Saturday evening:
“Then I used the trial to come forward as a good example for men, and I considered it to be worth 21 years in prison for premeditated murder.”
According to this account, Berge is being held for two weeks. He claims innocence.
Berge, as readers of this blog may well already know, is a fan of right-wing terrorist and mass murderer Anders Brevik. On his blog, he’s also argued (among other things) that “Rape is Equality.”
He’s glorified the murder of police on his blog numerous times.
Some examples, taken from the second news account:
“… attack on the police is something 100% in harmony with everything I stand for.”
“I maintain that police murder is both ethically and tactically correct.”
Some other examples, direct from his blog (each paragraph is from a separate post; click on the quote for the source):
I viscerally despise cops and wish them the worst. Killing at least one cop is on my bucket list.
If ever a victim of psychiatry, here is what I would do. I would first attempt to kill the cops or whoever tried to apprehend me. Failing that, I would feign docility in order to get out as soon as possible and then kill a representative of the industry as revenge. … killing cops is also very much a men’s issue. Every pig killed is also a blow against feminism, so men should be doubly elated whenever an officer goes down in the line of encroaching on our cognitive liberty.
This was his reaction to a news story about a police officer being killed:
Good news for men is rare in this hateful feminist utopia that is Norway, but today is a joyous day! Today I feel schadenfreude in my heart along with all the hate that feminism and resultant mate deprivation have instilled in me. One blue thug less on the streets.
From another post on the same subject:
The swine Olav Kildal died while trying to enforce our lack of cognitive liberty. This was a defensive, much deserved killing that cheered me up.
Here he threatens a female prosecutor:
To feminist prosecutor Anne Cathrine Aga I have the following message: The Men’s Movement is watching you, bitch, and we are seething with hatred against you personally and the police state you represent. Actions have consequences. Trials are still (mostly) public and they sink into our collective minds, where they form the basis of future activism. Hate breeds hate — that is a fact of life too smugly ignored by feminists. …
2011 is the year Norwegian men as a group emerged out of the blogosphere and into the battlefield. This in turn has led to a breakthrough for MRAs such as my good self in the public discourse, probably for the simple reason that the powers that be now realize ignoring us has deadly consequences. Men are angry now, and we have proven that we are deathly serious about resisting feminism. So the feminist prosecutors referred to above ought to wipe that smug look off their faces before it is too late. Clearly seventy-seven body bags wasn’t enough, but I am fairly confident that you will be sorry one day.
Aside from the explicit threats of violence, the violent and threatening rhetoric here is not unlike much of the rhetoric we see regularly on A Voice for Men and other MRA sites. AVFM founder Paul Elam, for example, told one feminist that:
I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection. … We are coming for you.
The blogger Emma the Emo, Berge’s girlfriend, has posted comments here in the past defending him. The news account quotes someone identified as Nataliya Kochergova, described as his girlfriend; I assume this is “Emma,” because what she told the media is similar to what she posted here. She of course denies that he planned any real violence. According to the article, she said:
There are not really threats. He has never had plans to kill someone, he has said several times in his blog. When for example, he says that “the police killings are an effective way to prevent stupid laws,” it’s a factual description and not a threat. Even those who love the police agree with it.
Berge, for his part, has stated publicly that if he had not met Emma, he probably would have killed by now:
At the time I wrote my last blog post, I believed I would probably become Norway’s first modern violent activist in peacetime. Celibacy enforced by a feminist regime had driven me to the point where I saw no other option. I would target the pigs who enforce feminist law, knowing I could realistically at least kill one of them before I would be captured or killed myself. Thus revenge would be assured and if I lived, my reputation as a violent criminal would make me attractive to some women. But then in the nick of time this blog attracted a lovely girl commenting as “Emma.”
This is why I take violent rhetoric from MRAs very seriously.
Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, MRAs glorify MRA “martyr” Thomas Ball, who killed himself on the steps of a New Hampshire courthouse last year in hopes that his death would inspire MRAs to literally burn down courthouses and police stations.
Ball’s manifesto is still up on A Voice for Men in its “activism” section, including these passages:
So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. … This is too important to be using that touchy- feeling coaching that is so popular with business these days. You need to flatten them, like Wile E. Coyote. They need to be taught never to replace the rule of law. BURN-THEM-OUT!
Most of the police stations built in New England over the last 20 years are stone or brick. Fortunately, the roofs are still wood. The advantage of fire on the roof is that it is above the sprinklers
AVFM tastefully omitted Ball’s specific instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails, but left this in:
There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.
For many more examples of violent threatening rhetoric from MRAs, I urge you to go through some of my posts here and here.
TheNatFantastic
Actually, on further looking, there’s no EU regulation 517A of any year – only 517. So Tom, are you talking out of your arse while claiming all women are idiots again? Because, idiot, you’re talking to a woman with a degree in law, from the UK, who studied EU law for five years.
Now tell me how David is a country in the EU please, I really honestly can’t wait for this.
Also tell me how getting yourself a £37k bill for your own vanity helps, say, male victims of rape. That should be interesting too.
Exhibit C.
I rest my case.
If you say that out loud in a Lionel Hutz voice, it’s extra funny.
Tom, dear, if you ‘rest your case’ by purely repeating someone mocking your ignorance/foolish attempts at bluster, no wonder you got stuck with a £37k bill. Answering the questions usually helps.
Tom’s stupidity makes my arse hurt.
@THeNatFantastic: Totally agree with your points–it’s just sad that in this case (maybe the only one) that the MRM talking point actually has some vague connection to real conflicts amongst and between women.
I think maybe Tom “penguins are whores” Martin is trying to make a joke this time. I can’t imagine why people would have difficulty telling the difference between when Tom “hard chairs are misandry” Martin is joking and when Tom “97% of all women are whores whores whores” Martin is making a serious assertion. His serious assertions are, after all, so very sensible.
It’s not just fanatics like this Norwegian, or Thomas Ball, we should be concerned about. There are any number of men who’ve both threatened violence, and who in some cases have committed acts of self-destruction, whose example is deeply worrying.
Take Mohamed Boazizi (1) for instance. This fool claimed that he’d been ‘hit by a woman’ (she denies this of course, and there are witnesses who back her up) and that this was so terribly traumatising that he had no choice but to douse himself with petrol and strike a match. He also made threats against the state/legal government and spoke frequently about ‘mans rights’ (sic) and compared them to ‘human rights’. In the aftermath of his suicide tens of thousands of men resorted to rioting, extreme violence and even sexual assault of innocent women (2).
What’s most horrifying is that organisations around the world have described Bouazizi as a martyr, indeed London-based newspaper The Times named him its 2011 ‘Man of the Year’.
We should be very concerned, as David says, about the spread of these violent, misogynist, hate-mongers and MRAs, and the fact that their influence is spreading is very worrying.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi
(2) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381710/Lara-Logan-reveals-terrifying-details-mob-sexual-assault-Egypt.html
“Now tell me how David is a country in the EU please”
Sovereign citizens! Maritime law! Wait, I’m getting my completely deranged MRA trolls mixed up again.
If Tom was in any way a normal and reasonable person, I’d have assumed his EU regulation citation was a joke: being a fellow Briton, my sarcasm radar is pretty well tuned to pick up this sort of thing.
But since he isn’t, it’s much harder to tell.
“Sovereign citizens! Maritime law! Wait, I’m getting my completely deranged MRA trolls mixed up again.”
I’d bet that bill is in black (printer or typewritter) ink though.
I thought that was an accidental double post by TheNatFantastic at first, realizing it was posted by Tom, I LOL’ed.
I think Eivind is doing well at what he’s doing, which is cutting a fine figure in the darbies, but I think he should rethink his path after Breivik unless he’s really interested in becoming the 2nd coming of Breivik or Sodini (I mean, there we part ways, obviously.) Real NS-types would say that the cop on the left cannot have the right to hold a Norwegian patriot in custody, and that the state is illegitimate as such, but then we’re back to Breivik and, further back, NS and Quisling.
Everyone loves Finland, Spain, and the Federal Republic of Germany, and few of the individual bad actors paid very much for what they did in the long-term. Many old Nazis died rich, happy, wealthy and celebrated by West German society. There were many, many Schachts and von Weizsäckers and very few Eichmanns. I don’t think a fascist Israel would get that degree of tolerance from the West (I hope not, in fact) but we aren’t White Men who get to bear the Burden no matter how much we ape the Men of the West.
“If Tom was in any way a normal and reasonable person, I’d have assumed his EU regulation citation was a joke: being a fellow Briton, my sarcasm radar is pretty well tuned to pick up this sort of thing.”
Oh, I get his “Exhibit C” thing then — he thinks he’s proven feminists are dumb because we missed the joke. When in reality the joke was terrible, and I’m not in or from the EU and thus really have no reason to know EU regs, and it took TheNatFantastic all of 15 min to discover a lack of any reg by that number (not a particularly long time for a legal citation).
So um, you proved that people not from the EU don’t know EU regs? Congrats?
“(I mean, there we part ways, obviously.) Real NS-types would say…”
Which is it, do you agree until he gets violent, or are you pulling an “other people (but not me) would say…”?
*scrolls up* …the cop on the left? The non-white one? So you agree with his racism? Or just wanted to say that some people might?
Got any proof that that cop isn’t a Swedish born citizen? (The only not-totally-racist standard I can think of that might justify your “other people would say”)
Gods I hate “other people would say” trolls.
@Argentri
I took him to mean ‘Exhibit C – look how mean you are! Facts are misandry!’. It’s not an uncommon tactic for people (in the UK) to just throw out *something about the EU* in order to ‘prove’ an argument. Few enough people understand enough about the EU to be able to refute a random statement about it. Unfortunately for Tom, I am one of those people.
Eurosabra is such a slimy little weasel. “Some people would say…not that I would, you understand, I’m nice…but still, some people would say…”.
“Few enough people understand enough about the EU to be able to refute a random statement about it.”
Fair enough, but did he somehow think a claim that they said something about the word cunt was going to go unchallenged? His claim was just a bit too preposterous for that tactic to ever work (and no Tom, the word preposterous has nothing to do with your posterior, no matter how uncomfortable your chair is)
@Argenti
Yeah, I’m not sure what the fuck he thought to be honest. However, I was working with the prior exhibited evidence that Mr. Martin is both horribly disingenuous and shockingly dim. I thought it safe to presume that he was that much of an epic ninny 🙂
It does not seem impossible that Tom might believe that the EU really does have a “don’t be a cunt” law, given his other beliefs.
I’m not sure… Have there been Evidence A and B? And has Tom’s defeat made him so more stupid that he know believes that basically saying “HAHA look what they said!” would constitute a good enough evidence to uphold to the standards of any court?
It’s not an uncommon tactic for people (in the UK) to just throw out *something about the EU* in order to ‘prove’ an argument. – TheNatFantastic
So true.. It’s become like a hobby amongst conservatives to complain about “stupid rules the EU has that only we’re stupid enough to follow”, especially if it’s related to human rights regulation or health and safety.
(I actually listened to a radio program the other day about the latter and how it’s all bollocks. I mean, I already knew it was, but they went into who’s actually making up all the bullshit rules and blaming the EU – it’s the people enforcing the rules themselves).
Oh I should add, “people enforcing the rules themselves” = people working at the places enforcing the rules, not the health and safety regulators of the country. They interviewed a guy from the regulator for most of the show and he was basically like “ffs stop blaming us, we’re not doing this”.
You probably already know all this, though maybe someone else will find it entertaining (and annoying). 😛
@ShadeTheDruid
Absolutely – see Theresa ‘And I’m Not Making This Up (Except I Totally Am)’ May. The Health and Safety Executive used to (possibly still do) have a section on their website devoted to debunking tabloid rag stories about ‘Elf ‘n Safety gawn maaad’. Pretty much all the stuff they were forced to correct was from the Mail and the Express, naturally.
Health and Safety and Human Rights have become such maligned concepts, especially in the past couple of years thanks to the government and the right-wing tabloids, who are thrilled to misrepresent them. This (as I’m sure you know, but for the benefit of non-UK readers) is basically because they want rid of both sets of legislation in order to benefit big businesses (i.e. their friends).
Sorry for the derail.
I was just about to say “don’t worry, derails are awesome”, then I remembered Owly and his penis..
Most derails are awesome. :O
Oh, I just wrote a comment to @ShadeTheDruid and it disappeared :/
Anyway, yes. Both the government and the tabloids are really into misrepresenting H&S and HR law (see Theresa May and Catgate – doubly annoying because she was repeating a tabloid myth debunked almost a year before). The tabloids were/are so bad that the H&S Executive was forced to have a section on their website debunking the tabloids’ stories – naturally the Mail and the Express were top culprits. There’s been an all-out assault on people misrepresenting the HR Act, in the past couple of years especially. This leads to one of my biggest pet peeves – people claiming the European Court of Human Rights is part of the EU and using overblown and cherry-picked lines from decisions it makes it to “explain” why we should leave the EU. *side-eyes all right-wing newspapers/journalists*.
Finally, the Tories are especially keen on denigrating H&S in order to reduce public support (see: calling basic safety precautions ‘red tape’ and ‘bureaucracy’) and thus save their mates in big business even more cash. I mean, who cares if the proles lose a few limbs or die?
/Derail
Oh BUMS. Yeah, ignore my last comment, it’s basically just repeating the first. Well now I feel like a right Martin.