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Breivik prison 'will not stop hunger strike'

The Local Norway
The Local Norway - [email protected]
Breivik prison 'will not stop hunger strike'
Breivik smiling. Photo: Heiko Junge/NTB Scanpix

Norway's prison services will do nothing to stop mass killer Anders Behring Breivik from starving to death if he carries through his planned hunger strike to the end.

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According to Norway's Dagbladet newspaper, prisons in the country have no legal grounds to force-feed inmates who chose to go on hunger strike.  
 
"A patient has the right to refuse to receive blood or blood products or to refuse to stop an ongoing hunger strike because of a serious conviction," the prison guidelines read. 
 
Should Breivik choose to go on hunger strike, health workers at Skien prison are obliged to give him information about the health risks involved, but are not allowed to intervene.

"It is important that the person is kept continuously informed about their health condition and the dangers the person in question is exposing themselves to," the guidelines read. 

Aslak Syse, a law professor at the University of Oslo said that force-feeding a person on hunger strike was against the European Convention on Human Rights.

"There are no special rules on force-feeding in prison. Therefore, the normal rules that allow for hunger strike apply, even if it affects health," Syse told Dagbladet.

In a recent open letter to Norwegian and Swedish media Breivik pledged "to continue the hunger strike until death. I can not stand any more."
 
He complains that his prison conditions have worsened significantly since the second of September.
 
The far-right extremist is serving a 21-year jail sentence at Skien prison for a brutal twin terror attack in 2011, in which he detonated a bomb in the government quarters in Oslo, killing eight people, and then opened fire at a political youth camp, killing 69 more. 

 

 

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