Pål Steigan (born 31 May 1949) is a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

writer and politician, best known as founder of the newspaper ''

Klassekampen ''Klassekampen'' ( en, The Class Struggle) is a Norwegian daily newspaper. It describes itself as "the newspaper of the Left." The paper's net circulation is 34,000 (2021), and it has around 111,000 daily readers on paper (160,000 on Saturdays). ...

'' and the website '' Steigan.no''. He was leader of the

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

Workers' Communist Party, AKP (m-l) from 1975 to 1984, and co-leader of the

Red Electoral Alliance Red Electoral Alliance ( nb, Rød Valgallianse, nn, Raud Valallianse, RV) was an alliance of far-left groups formed into a Norwegian political party to promote revolutionary socialism ideals into the Norwegian parliament. The party dissolved itse ...

(RV) until 1979."Pål Steigan"
''Store norske leksikon'', 29.12.2012 Both parties were small fringe parties that were never represented in parliament during his tenure. He co-founded ''

'' as a monthly periodical in 1969, and during his leadership AKP developed the periodical into a newspaper in 1977. He later founded the alternative news website '' Steigan.no'' that is described as a platform of

Russian propaganda The propaganda of the Russian Federation promotes views, perceptions or agendas of the government of Russia. The media include state-run outlets and online technologies, and may involve using "Soviet-style 'active measures' as an element of m ...

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

and

transphobia Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...

Workers Communist Party, AKP (m-l)

He co-founded ''

'' as a monthly periodical in 1969, and during his leadership AKP (m-l) developed the periodical into a newspaper in 1977. During his leadership of AKP (m-l), Steigan traveled to countries under communist regimes, such as

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

and

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

(

Democratic Kampuchea Kampuchea ( km, កម្ពុជា ), officially known as Democratic Kampuchea (DK; km, កម្ពុជាប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ ) from 5 January 1976, was a one-party totalitarian state which encompassed modern-day Camb ...

). He met

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

Enver Hoxha Enver Halil Hoxha ( , ; 16 October 190811 April 1985) was an Albanian communist politician who was the authoritarian ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 unt ...

and

Pol Pot Pol Pot; (born Saloth Sâr;; 19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was a Cambodian revolutionary, dictator, and politician who ruled Cambodia as Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1976 and 1979. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist a ...

."Pål Steigan: - Vi dro det for langt"
''Aftenposten'', 17.09.2003 After meeting the

Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...

leader Pol Pot in 1978, he began to support the regime,"Det unnvikende oppgjøret"
''Dagbladet'', 17 July 2003 later admitting his support for the

genocidal Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

Khmer Rouge was a mistake explaining that he now believed it was not Marxist. He has continued to be criticised for bearing a personal responsibility for his political support to the regime. In 1978, he told an interviewer from ''The Call'', the newspaper of the American Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist), that since the foundation of the party five years earlier "we have been waging a struggle against two brands of revisionism" in Norway, "the Brezhnevist, Moscow revisionist type party, which is the old so-called Norwegian Communist Party, and a newer Eurorevisionist party." According to Steigan in the same interview: " ’s obvious that the Soviet social-imperialists are planning to take Norway in the initial stages of a war over Europe." He is a critic of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

, writing that it "has inflicted so many defeats upon the working class and people all over the world that it’s hard to give an account of them."

Steigan.no

Steigan founded the self-proclaimed "

anti-globalist The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...

" alternative news site ''Steigan.no'' that has been widely criticized for promoting

and

. The website has been described by extremism researcher John Færseth as a platform of

and pro-

Kremlin The Kremlin ( rus, Московский Кремль, r=Moskovskiy Kreml', p=ˈmɐˈskofskʲɪj krʲemlʲ, t=Moscow Kremlin) is a fortified complex in the center of Moscow founded by the Rurik dynasty, Rurik dynasty. It is the best known of th ...

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

and

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

, and as an example of " red–brown convergence" with links to the

alt-right The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...

. According to the fact checking website '' Faktisk.no'', ''Steigan'' is part of an alternative and far-right

echo chamber Echo chamber of the Dresden University of Technology Hamilton Mausoleum has a long-lasting unplanned echo An echo chamber is a hollow enclosure used to produce reverberation, usually for recording purposes. For example, the producers of a ...

that also includes ''

Document.no Document.no is a Norwegian far-right anti-immigration website. Academics have identified Document.no as an Islamophobic website permeated by the Eurabia conspiracy theory. The website received global media attention in connection with the 2011 N ...

'', '' Rights.no'', '' Resett'' and ''Lykten.no'', and where individuals linked to Stop Islamisation of Norway play a prominent role. In 2022 ''Faktisk.no'' wrote that Steigan is the main promoter of Russian propaganda among alternative media in Norway. The secretary-general of the left-wing

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

party Benedikte Pryneid Hansen said the leadership of the party shares the view that Steigan is a platform of "onesided Russian war propaganda, conspiracy theories, racism and transphobia", and that the blog is increasingly characterized by "extreme conspiracy theories." Anne-Marith Rasmussen, the president of Red in Troms and chair of the party’s LGBT committee, said Steigan is a "blog that promotes racism, homophobia and transphobia" as well as Russian propaganda, and that is a threat to democracy. Steigan was denied membership in the Norwegian Association of Newspaper Editors (''Norsk Redaktørforening''), with the rationale that Steigan.no is not a journalistic medium, but rather an activist website that disregards accepted journalistic principles. Some of the blog's writers include prominent Norwegian anti-semite Hans Olav Brendberg and Swedish anti-transgender activist

Kajsa Ekis Ekman Kajsa "Ekis" Ekman is a Swedish author and journalist. She has written four books, translated into several languages, about capitalism, economic crises, and women's rights. She lectures internationally on prostitution and surrogacy. She is a regul ...

Books

Steigan's memoirs ''En folkefiende'' (''A public enemy'') were published in 2013.
Steigan, Pål, Veiskille: finnes det noen vei ut av miljøkrisa? Oktober Forlag, Oslo, 1990, 244 s.

References

1949 births Living people Leaders of political parties in Norway Norwegian anti-capitalists Norwegian communists Politicians from Oslo Red Party (Norway) politicians Workers' Communist Party (Norway) politicians {{Norway-politician-1940s-stub