page_title: Hege Storhaug
section_title: Human Rights Service
hierarchical_section_title: Hege Storhaug / Human Rights Service
caption_attribution_description: English: Kjetil Rolness and Hege Storhaug in a debate at Cosmopolite in Oslo in 2015. Norsk bokmål: Kjetil Rolness og Hege Storhaug under en debatt på Cosmopolite i 2015.
context_page_description: Hege Storhaug is a Norwegian journalist, author and political activist. She has been noted since the 1990s for her criticism of Islam and immigration, and for her women's rights activism, highlighting Muslim women in particular. Since 2002 she has been the information director of Human Rights Service. Her 2015 book Islam, den 11. landeplage became a bestseller in Norway and has been translated into several languages.
  Formerly an active volleyball player, Storhaug is a certified athletic trainer with a degree from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, and has highlighted eating disorders among female athletes. She has played on the Norway women's national volleyball team, and coached and played on teams that have won the Norwegian national championships.
context_section_description: In 2002 Storhaug was involved in the Brennpunkt documentary Barnebruder – en ulykkelig historie for state broadcaster NRK, which uncovered the importation of child brides into Norway. The same year she co-founded and began as information director of the foundation Human Rights Service (HRS). Storhaug was later, in 2004 accused of having exerted undue pressure on the girls she had worked with for her documentaries. Among those who have praised Storhaug and HRS's work is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who in the first article she published as a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute wrote that while most non-governmental organizations in Europe "are embarrassingly silent" on the struggle for human rights for Muslim women and girls, "there is one in Norway that pays attention, Human Rights Service, run by a brave, determined woman, Hege Storhaug."
  Storhaug's 2006 book But the Greatest of These Is Freedom: On the Consequences of Immigration (title of the later English version), was praised by some critics and won the Southern Norway's Literary Prize. However, only a total of 929 votes were cast, and there were five books nominated for the prize. A high-profile participant in media debates about forced marriage, honor killing, genital mutilation, Islam, and questions relating to the cultural impact and economic sustainability of large-scale immigration, her research and outspokenness led her to become increasingly more controversial.
  In 2007 Storhaug was assaulted outside her own home and beaten unconscious with blows to the head by an unknown assailant. She did not go public with the story until 2010, initially wanting to keep it private and fearing it could scare likeminded activists, until changing her mind after an attack against Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
  Her book Islam, den 11. landeplage became one of Norway's biggest bestsellers during the autumn of 2015, selling 20,000 copies in its first month with several new editions issued, despite being self-published and gaining little to none initial mainstream media coverage. The same year she led online voting for the "Name of the Year" award of newspaper Verdens Gang by a wide margin, but fell short of winning the award following a final selective opinion poll. Some including Gunnar Stavrum and Kjetil Rolness criticised the selection process of the newspaper, particularly that the final results were not publicly disclosed and a less favourable presentation of Storhaug in the poll. By February 2016 the book had broken records after selling nearly 50,000 copies in three months.
caption: Storhaug in a 2015 debate forum hosted following her book success.
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