Jan Simonsen
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Jan Simonsen (born March 3, 1953 in Stavanger, Norway) was a member of the Norwegian parliament. He was elected with the Progress Party, but was later expelled. He is now the vice-secretary of the Democrats, a far-right party, led by Vidar Kleppe, also expelled from the Progress party.
He is unmarried. He has studied social science at Rogaland DH and has a minor in history. His personal lifestyle has been subject to many rumours, and he has admitted to have had acquaitance with male prostitutes (he actually used a male prostitute's advice to write a book).
[edit] Professional experience
He has been editor for "Strandbuen", "Video- og TV-guiden" and "Fremskritt" (Progress). He has been secretary of the parliament group of the Progress Party. He has been a member of Stavanger city council and been chairman of Stavanger Progress Party. He has been member of the main board in the Progress Party and been chairman in Rogaland Progression Party's Youth. He was a board member Oslo Kinomatografer (Oslo Cinema) 1987-93. Administrative deputy chairman of the Progress Party 1991-93. Deputy member of the Parliament 1981-85. He was deputy chairman of the church and education committee of the Parliament 1989-93. He has been a member of the Parliament since 1989.
[edit] Ideas
Many characterise Simonsen as an anti-islamic racist. He refuses the tag of "racist", but maintains a series of somehow peculiar political views: for example, he proposed George W. Bush and Tony Blair for the Nobel peace prize, on the unlikely grounds that they had started the 2003 invasion of Iraq [1]; he has congratulated Israel, of which he is a staunch supporter, with the assassination of Ahmed Yassin [2] and Russia with the liquidation of Aslan Maskhadov [3].
These "stunts", in stark contrast with the mainstream Norwegian public opinion, may be explained with the necessity of maintaining a certain presence in the media, since his expulsion from the Progress Party.
[edit] Expelled from the party
After 25 years as a member of the Progress party, Simonsen was expelled from it by his own county division, in Rogaland. They stated that his "way of life" was not "coherent" to his position as a member of the parliament.
On Friday October 19, 2001 the Progress Party's secretary-general, Carl I. Hagen, made a statement to the Norwegian news broadcast NTB: The Progress Party has, after a complete evaluation, decided that it is best for both parties to leave each other. Simonsen on the other hand thought that this was a too generalised term to be acceptable. According to Simonsen there were no concrete reasons for his exclusion, and that his request for what the reasons were had failed.
While there were undoubtedly issues regarding the power struggle in the party, Hagen may also have thought that an anti-islamic extremist like Simonsen was inappropriate in order to gain support among more moderate voters.
The exclusion process started off while Simonsen was on a vacation in Israel. Norway's largest commercial TV channel, TV2, broadcast a program where they focused on one of Simonsen's friends, whom he had assisted to get licensed to sell alcoholic beverages, a very strictly regulated issue in Norway.
The program also stated that his friend was formerly convicted for invitation to prostitution in Germany, which was later confirmed to be true by Simonsen when he wrote a book about the friend's life. Simonsen denied that he had done anything wrong, and stated that he had only helped out a friend who had waited for a long time to get licensed. This was—in his opinion—coherent with the politics of the Progress Party.
Prior to this TV program, he had officially supported formerly excluded members of the party like Dag Danielsen, Vidar Kleppe and Fridjof Frank Gundersen.
