Pandemic Police Peeking Through Windows

Þórdís Björk Sigurþórsdóttir, a mother in Hafnarfjörður, felt unfairly treated by a police intervention at her house on Friday night, Fréttablaðið reported yesterday. Several of her son’s friends, all students at Verslunarskóli Íslands, had gathered at her home to attend a digital evening organised by the school. The police knocked on the door at 23:30, shortly after the evening had ended, to interrupt what they viewed as a gathering which broke the ten person limit.

The police statement reported seeing twenty young people leave the house, all without masks, and added that Þórdís had not cooperated but instead swore at the police officers.

Þórdís responded by saying that the number was more like ten, then added that the ten-person gathering ban only applies to each room, and that as they live in a two-storey house, they were still following the rules. “For example, three boys were playing computer games in one of the rooms.”

Þórdís also claims that the police violated constitutional rights about privacy in the home, and complained that she was not provided with a copy of the police report. “I requested a copy of the police report and recordings that I am entitled to receive. Then they said no, the case was being investigated and I had to get a lawyer to get this information. I do not need a lawyer to request this information,” she said. She also managed to take a photograph of a police officer peeking through her window.

However, the police in the capital area believe that the officers involved were proportionate in their response, and added that the officer was looking through the window in order to count the young people leaving through the back door.

Þórdís’s son now wants to become a lawyer following the incident. “He thought it went so far that he said he has decided to go into law,” she said.

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