JMI Students End Study Visit to Norway

23 May 2015<br /> <br /> Jordan Media Institute (JMI) students ended a six-day academic trip to Norway on 23 May that included visits to several public institutions and were briefed on the role of the media and democracy as well as Norwegian policies on asylum seekers and refugees.<br /> The trip by 18 students from the thesis track was the third that JMI has organized for its students since 2013 in cooperation with the Norwegian Institute of Journalism and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.<br /> <br /> The students met in Oslo with Ministry of Foreign Affairs Senior Counsellor Elisabeth Salvesen who briefed them on her country&rsquo;s support for Middle East peace efforts, noting that Norway&rsquo;s intervention in conflict zones was aimed at supporting those efforts.<br /> They also visited the Nobel Institute and met with its director Olav Njolstad, and continued onto the Norwegian Parliament where Ingjerd Schou&nbsp;from the Conservative Party talked about local and general elections and mechanisms governing those processes.<br /> <br /> In Fredrikstad, the students visited their host Frode Rekve at the Norwegian Institute of Journalism and were briefed by him on the training programs offered by the institute as well as the services it provides to the local community. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /> Problems threatening the existence of newspapers in Norway and the world were the focus of discussions between the students and Oivind Laagbu who is an editor at the local Fredriksstad Blad newspaper. Laagbu said in order for newspapers to be sustainable, they needed to focus on local issues, downsize and develop their digital content.<br /> <br /> At Oslo University, the students listened to a lecture on Arab citizenship and democracy by Professor Rania Maktabi who is Norwegian of Lebanese origin. She stressed that true democracy was not related to elections but to full citizenship rights for all members of society regardless of their sex, religion or ethnic background. Maktabi added that women in the Arab world do not enjoy the same rights as men and are often deprived of the right to transfer their nationality to their children in addition to rights related to marriage, divorce and custody of their children. &nbsp;<br /> The students also met with the Mayor of Fredrikstad Jon-Ivar Nygard of the Labour Party who talked about local governance and the decision-making process in the country.<br /> <br /> They also visited Veum center for asylum seekers and were briefed policies governing refugees.<br /> <br /> The last program on the visit was a meeting with a member of the Norwegian Secret Service who discussed efforts to fight radical groups in Norway. He noted that 68 Norwegian men and women were confirmed to have traveled to Syria to fight with the Islamic State. However, he expected the number of supporters to be much higher.<br /> &nbsp;