The shocking murder of teenage girl Shada Jehua Al-Bargouti, and the cruel imprisonment and forced psychiatric treatment of the innocent and healthy mother Lillian Gran, has again put the child protection agency in Norway - barnevernet - in the crosshairs.

The tragic Shada murder case

On August 12, 2019, a 16-year-old girl named Shada Yehya Fehmi Al-Bargouti was found dead in her room at Stendi AS, a privately run child welfare institution in Stavanger, Norway.

Shada was a Norwegian citizen of Palestinian origin. She had been taken from her family by Norwegian child welfare authorities in 2012, at the age of nine, along with her two younger brothers. The three siblings were separated. Over the following seven years, Shada was moved between at least six different child institutions and raped repeatedly. She tried to run home to her parents several times. She never made it.

When her father was informed of her death in Stendi AS in Stavanger, the first words he heard from Norwegian police were: "Your daughter has been murdered." That statement was never followed up.

"Norway's Palestinian Ambassador, Marie-Antoinette Sedin, stated in an interview published in an Arabic-language news channel based in Ramallah that she had been informed by Norwegian authorities that Shada had indeed been murdered", says human rights activist Rune Fardal. "No police investigation was done. Incredibly, instead the parents of Shada was put in prison!"

Documents obtained by Dr. Rodgeir Vinsrygg show that police contacted senior health authorities following Shada's death. The subject of that communication was how to keep Shada's death out of the media.

The shocking Lillian Gran case

After separating from the children's father in 2014, doctor and former politician Lillian Gran was granted primary care of their two children. In December 2020 the children were brought to formal police interviews in January 2021 on suspicion of abuse by their father. Both children were consistent and specific about what had happened to them.

When Lillian arrived at the child welfare office to collect her children after the interviews, two child welfare workers told her: the children had said nothing. She should relax and continue sending them to their father.

That was a lie.

"Lillian discovered the truth two years later, when she finally gained partial access to the interview transcripts in preparation for a court hearing. Her children had been explicit about abuse. The child welfare authority had concealed it", says Linn Rine, spokesperson for the human rights organization Rettssikkerhet for alle! "Incredibly, child welfare services in Løten municipality took the children from their mother and placed them by force with the father. Barnevernet in Løten even used the trauma caused by the separation from their mother as an excuse to do it!"

What do children suffering from abuse do? They flee. And the children of Lillian Gran fled back to their mother. For trying to save her children, Lillian Gran was put in prison for kidnapping! Even more shocking, at precent, she is in forced psychiatric treatment - despite being confirmed completely healthy and sane.

Contact:
Linn Rine, spokesperson, Rettssikkerhet for alle!
[email protected]
Phone: +47 40 00 32 06