According the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, RÚV, the Minister of Industry and Trade, Valgerdur Sverrisdóttir of the Progressive Party, has demanded that the police investigate threats she believes she has received from protesters who oppose the hydroelectric dam at Kárahnjúkar.
RÚV reports that last Saturday the daily Fréttabladid and the TV news channel NFS both showed images of a protester waving a placard with the words “Drown Valgerdur, but not Iceland”.
According to RÚV, Valgerdur writes in her complaint to the police that the slogan contains a threat of a criminal offense intended to strike fear into herself, her daughters and her family concerning [her] life, health and well-being.
According to RÚV, Valgerdur is surprised that the media has not caught on to this issue and wonders if anything is permissible when it comes to ministers. The matter is now in the hands of the police, said Valgerdur according to RÚV.
A public official has not been drowned in Iceland since 1433 when the Danish bishop of Skálholt, Jón Gerreksson, came to an untimely end. According the website of Skálholt, “annals say that people from the North took him in full regalia by the altar of the cathedral, dragged him to the [nearby] river Brúará and drowned him with a rope and a stone. There was no aftermath.”
