The Mustafa-letter was a controversial letter which the chairman of the Progress Party

Progress Party (Norway)

The Progress Party is a political party in Norway which identifies as conservative liberal and libertarian. The media has described it as conservative and right-wing populist...

, Carl I. Hagen

Carl I. Hagen

Carl Ivar Hagen is a Norwegian politician and former Vice President of the Norwegian Parliament. He was the chairman of the Progress Party from 1978 until 2006, when Siv Jensen replaced him as chairman of the party...

, used in the electoral campaign for the 1987 local elections

Norwegian local elections, 1987

Country-wide local elections for seats in municipality and county councils were held throughout Norway in 1987. For most places this meant that two elections, the municipal elections and the county elections ran concurrently.-Municipal elections:...

. The letter was signed Mohammad Mustafa, a Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 immigrant to Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, but the media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

 soon claimed they could prove the letter was false. The letter became controversial, both in the manner it was used by Hagen, and the claim of it being a fraud.

At the end of the 1987 electoral campaign, on 7 September at a congress in Rørvik

Rørvik

Rørvik is a port village in the municipality of Vikna in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. The village also serves as the administrative centre of the municipality. It is on the eastern side of the Vikna archipelago on the island of Inner-Vikna. The village has a population of 2,721. The...

, Hagen read from the letter. According to the media, Hagen started off by stating that "the asylum seekers are on their way to take over our fatherland". Thereafter, he read the entire letter, which claimed that Muslims would make Norway "Muslim", and that churches were to be replaced by mosque

Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

s. Mustafa declared himself as a faithful muslim, and claimed that the Muslims in Norway were great in numbers, and gave birth to more children than the Norwegians

Norwegians

Norwegians constitute both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegian people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in United States, Canada and Brazil.-History:Towards the end of the 3rd...

.

The letter was dated 8 July 1987, and read as follows:
The tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang

Verdens Gang

Verdens Gang , generally known under the abbreviation VG, is a Norwegian tabloid newspaper...

soon claimed they could prove that the letter was false. Since the letter was signed with full name and address, the newspaper were able to contact Mohammad Mustafa to investigate the matter. Mustafa reportedly expressed that he felt exploited by Carl I. Hagen, and that he considered legal step

Lawsuit

A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...

s. In late 1987, he filed suit against Hagen, with Tor Erling Staff as his lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

. Staff demanded, on behalf of his client, compensation from Hagen and the Progress Party for 500,000 NOK

Norwegian krone

The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...

. Staff claimed that Hagen knew the letter was false when he used it in the electoral campaign. Hagen himself however claimed that he didn't even know that any journalists were present at what was an internal party convention, and that it wasn't a deliberate stunt for the electoral campaign. The case went to the Oslo City Court in November 1988, and resulted in a settlement between the two parties.

The Progress Party tripled its vote for the 1987 election, compared to 1985.