Document.no is a Norwegian website, which describes itself as a "blog on politics, public debate, media criticism and culture." The website holds positions that are critical towards Islam[1][2] and immigration,[3] and supportive of Israel.[4] The National Library of Norway classifies document.no under "current periodicals," and as focusing on culture, politics and political science.[5] The website was founded on 14 January 2003, and is owned and published by the limited company with the same name. The website's founder and editor is Hans Rustad.[6] By 2011, the website reached an audience of up to 40,000 unique visitors every week.[7]
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Aftenposten described it in 2009 as "an Islam-critical and Israel-friendly, so-called blue-blog".[4] The Norwegian conservative Muslim commentator Mohammad Usman Rana has called document.no "a right-wing populist and Muslimphobic interest group".[8] Helge Øgrim, editor of Journalisten, the journal of the Norwegian Union of Journalists, in July 2011 described document.no as an "anti-immigrant forum which has evolved into a hotbed of galloping Islamophobia."[9] The same month, the Financial Times described document.no as "a website rife with anti-Muslim and hard right rhetoric,"[10] and Lars Gule described it in the The Vancouver Sun as "a far-right web forum" that is "dominated by Islamophobic and anti-immigration commentary".[11] The New York Times described document.no as "a popular conservative Website."[12]
Yvonne Rundberg Savosnick, the former chairman of the Norwegian Union of Jewish Students, cited the website in an 2009 interview with student newspaper at the University of Oslo Universitas. In the article titled "Curriculum" she was asked to suggest three websites that she would recommend be on the curriculum of every student. After stating that she did not agree for one curriculum for all she suggested the website as one of three picks as, although she rarely agreed with everything on the site, it gave a critical view of the Norwegian press.[13]
In 2009 the website was cited by Dagbladet as the main player, when for the first time in Norwegian history, "bloggers" was credited for successfully setting the national political agenda. Rustad had on a daily basis criticized a governmental proposed extension of § 185 with regards to "hate speech so that the provision protects the need for a criminal law protection against qualified attack on religions and belief." The proposed bill was met with nearly no exposure in the mainstream media, until close to a month later, although it had been criticizised as an attack on democracy in Danish newspapers. Eventually the bill became criticized as attacking freedom of speech, and an online petition against it was supported by numerous notable figures in Norway. In the end, the government pulled the proposal back.[14]