The Mustafa Letter ( no, Mustafa-brevet) was a controversial letter that the leader of the Progress Party, Carl I. Hagen, used in the electoral campaign for the 1987 Norwegian local elections. The letter was signed Mohammad Mustafa, a

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

immigrant to Norway, but the media soon proved the letter to be false. The letter became controversial, both in the manner it was used by Hagen, and the claim of it being a fraud.

Speech and content

At the end of the 1987 electoral campaign, on 7 September at a congress in

Rørvik Rørvik is a port town and administrative centre in the municipality of Nærøysund in Trøndelag county, Norway. It is on the eastern side of the Vikna archipelago on the island of Inner-Vikna. The town has a population (2022) of 3,385 and a p ...

, Hagen read from the letter. According to the media, Hagen started off by stating that "the

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and mi ...

s are on their way to take over our fatherland". Thereafter, he read the entire letter, which claimed that Muslims would make Norway "Muslim", and that

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

es were to be replaced by

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

s. Mustafa declared himself as a faithful Muslim, and claimed that the Muslims in Norway were great in numbers, and gave birth to more children than the Norwegians. The letter was dated 8 July 1987, and read as follows:

Aftermath

The tabloid newspaper ''

Verdens Gang ''Verdens Gang'' ("The course of the world"), generally known under the abbreviation ''VG'', is a Norwegian tabloid newspaper. In 2016, circulation numbers stood at 93,883, having declined from a peak circulation of 390,510 in 2002. ''VG'' is n ...

'' soon claimed they could prove that the letter was false. Since the letter was signed with full name and address, the newspaper were able to contact Mohammad Mustafa to investigate the matter. Mustafa denied having sent the letter, and also pointed out that he hadn't lived in the address mentioned in the letter for over a year. Mustafa reportedly expressed that he felt exploited by Carl I. Hagen, and that he considered legal steps. In late 1987, he filed suit against Hagen, with Tor Erling Staff as his

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

. Staff demanded, on behalf of his client, compensation from Hagen and the Progress Party for 500,000

NOK Nok is a village in Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. The village is an archeological site. Archaeology The discovery of terracotta figurines at this location caused its name to be used for the Nok culture, of which these ...

. Staff claimed that Hagen knew the letter was false when he used it in the electoral campaign. Hagen himself however claimed that he didn't even know that any journalists were present at what was an internal party convention, and that it wasn't a deliberate stunt for the electoral campaign. The case went to the Oslo City Court in November 1988, and resulted in a settlement between the two parties. The Progress Party almost doubled its share of the votes for the 1987 local election, compared to the local election in 1983. The nature of the letter has later been seen to have pioneered European anti-Islam rhetoric, which did not become more widespread until many years later.

References

{{Progress Party (Norway) 1987 in Norway Political scandals in Norway Anti-Islamic forgeries Islam in Norway 1987 documents Conspiracy theories in Norway