Comedian Atle Antonsen says that he fled the country in shame after the Bar Boca incident became known.
– I cannot begin to talk in detail about what happened at Bar Boca. Every single time it is brought up, it only goes beyond Sumaya, says Atle Antonsen in the year’s first live broadcast of “The Mission”.
– And I don’t want her to get any more shit and harassment because of me.
Antonsen is back in the studio after he asked for exemption from the radio program in November after it became known that Sumaya Jirde Ali areported him for hate speech. The case was dropped by the state attorney, then appealed, and finally dropped by the Attorney General.
Antonsen says he has used the last time for “further training”. His co-presenter Johan Golden asks how he is doing.
– It has gone better before. I have to be honest.
– I have been ashamed then, something violent of course, I have felt shame and guilt and self-loathing.
Flee the country
Antonsen says that after the case broke in the media he did not leave the house – and that he sat indoors in his own home for a couple of weeks.
– I was so ashamed that I didn’t leave the house. And I wouldn’t want to go to the shop and not meet neighbors and friends, says Antonsen and continues:
– I’m not saying this because it’s my fault, of course, because I’m far from a victim.
Did you read this comment? With the reputation in (f)atle
He says that he fled the country as a result of the incident.
– If I dare to go out the door, I have to go somewhere else. So then I got in the car and drove towards Denmark.
– There are quite a few Norwegians who go to Copenhagen at the weekends. I discovered it when I entered the door of the hotel. So then I got the fright again, and went straight into the lift and into the room and stayed there more or less for four days.
Antonsen also says that he has received support, but that this is not necessarily support he appreciates.
– I knew that now I will get support from the wrong people. Support is guaranteed to come from people I don’t want support from, people far to the right with a terrible view of humanity. I did not read those messages.
– Impossible for her to be able to move on
On Wednesday, Sumaya Jirde Ali’s friend Hasti Hamidi published a post on Facebook. TV 2 received permission to comment on the post.
There, Hamidi writes, among other things, that this characterizes Sumaya’s everyday life, and that constant inquiries about the case “make it impossible for her to be able to move on”.
“And in addition, she has to come to terms with the fact that a man who humiliated her in the worst way so soon is visible again”, she writes further.
Monday confirmed P4 that Atle Antonsen should return to “The Mission” on radio and in podcasts.
– He is ready to start working again, and greatly appreciates that P4 wants him back, said Antonsen’s lawyer Marianne Klausen.
“The mission” is broadcast live on P4 from 10.00 to 12.00 on Fridays, and is later published as a podcast episode.
The Attorney General: “Not very successful attempt at satire”
It was in November that it became known that Antonsen was staying reported for hate speechby the profiled social debater Sumaya Jirde Ali, after an episode at the Bar Boca nightclub in Oslo.
At the nightclub, Antonsen is said to have said that she was “too dark-skinned” to be there.
After the incident, Antonsen asked for an exemption from the radio program he has hosted together with Golden for a number of years. He also resigned as presenter of “The King Commands”.
The case was dropped by the state attorney, then appealed, and finally dropped by the Attorney General.
The Attorney General described the episode in his decision as “a poorly successful attempt at satire on racism”.
– An important clarification in this context is that the Attorney General clearly concluded in his justification for closing that the case “must be understood as a poorly successful attempt at satire on racism”, says responsible editor and managing director of the P4 group, Kenneth Andresen.
