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Norway commemorates the victims of the Breivik terror

2021-07-22T15:33:15.441Z


Ten years ago, the insane act of a right-wing extremist tore a deep wound in the collective soul of Norway. On the anniversary of the Breivik attacks, the fight against hatred and threats from the right continues.


Ten years ago, the insane act of a right-wing extremist tore a deep wound in the collective soul of Norway.

On the anniversary of the Breivik attacks, the fight against hatred and threats from the right continues.

Oslo - Every single name hurts.

All of these 77 mostly young people, whose names will be read out this afternoon on the island of Utøya, died exactly ten years ago in this place or earlier in Oslo's government district.

Murdered by right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik in the worst act of violence Norway experienced after World War II.

There is a minute's silence, then Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit, Prime Minister Erna Solberg and others put up wreaths.

A trumpet is playing, and if you want, you can add roses, which have become the symbol of Norway's answer to terror.

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Crown Princess Mette-Marit (2nd from left), Crown Prince Haakon Magnus and the Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg during the memorial ceremony in Oslo.

© Geir Olsen / NTB scanpis / AP / dpa

Ten years after the terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utøya, Norway commemorated the 77 deaths on Thursday. At commemorative events at the two crime scenes and at several other locations in the country, many speakers drew attention to the ongoing fight against hatred, right-wing extremism and racism, which is also being fought out on the Internet.

“Ten years ago we met hate with love.

But the hatred is still there, ”said the former Norwegian Prime Minister and today's NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at a memorial service in Oslo Cathedral.

Every day we must fight for democratic values, he said with a view to racist and right-wing extremist acts in Norway, but also to terrorist attacks such as the Islamist attacks in Brussels and Paris.

"The terrorists can choose to take lives, but we decide that they must not take democracy, our free and open society, from us."

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Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General and former Norwegian Prime Minister, speaks during the memorial service in Oslo Cathedral.

© Torstein Bøe // dpa

Stoltenberg had been Prime Minister of the Scandinavian country at the time when his nation experienced the worst act of violence in the post-war period and Europe one of the worst terrorist attacks ever. Right-wing extremist Breivik first detonated a bomb hidden in a white van on July 22, 2011, killing eight people in Oslo's government district. He then drove to the island of Utøya, about 30 kilometers away, where he pretended to be a police officer and opened fire on the participants in the annual summer camp of the youth organization of the Social Democratic Labor Party.

69 people, mostly teenagers and young adults, were killed on Utøya. Breivik named right-wing extremist and Islamophobic motives for his actions. In August 2012 he was sentenced to the then maximum sentence of 21 years in preventive detention with a minimum duration of ten years.

Despite the impressions of the atrocities and the internationally admired reaction of the Norwegians immediately after the attacks, the problem of hateful and right-wing extremist views has not disappeared even in the far north of Europe. On the contrary: just a few days ago a memorial site for a youth who was murdered for racist motives in 2001 was sprayed with the message “Breivik was right”, and in August 2019 a young right-wing extremist attacked a mosque near Oslo on the eve of the Islamic Festival of Sacrifice. After he was overpowered and arrested by believers, police later found the body of his 17-year-old stepsister, whom he killed with four rifle shots.

According to a recently published Utøya study, every third person who survived the terror on the island has experienced hate messages and threats.

Most of them attribute this to the fact that they were on Utøya on July 22, 2011.

"Not all hateful words lead to terror, but every terror begins with hateful words," said Utøya survivor and current head of the Labor Party's youth organization, Astrid WE Hoem, at a memorial in Oslo's government district.

Ten years after the attacks, one has to admit that the hatred has not stopped.

“We must now say once and for all that we do not accept racism and hatred.

If we do that now, we may be able to keep the promise of "never again July 22nd", "she said.

dpa

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-07-22

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