Category Archives: Norway

Stop Islamisation of Norway leader claims growth in membership, far right analyst expresses scepticism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arne Tumyr SIANA Norwegian group called “Stop Islamisation of Norway” (SIAN) has doubled membership levels in the last two years, its representatives claim.

The group, whose most active membership is located in Rogaland, has also been awarded a government concession to transmit on Radio Kos in Sandnes, western Norway. It alleges Internet radio capacity had to be increased from 25,000 to 200,000 listeners recently because of popularity.

Merete Hodne and Kjersti Margrethe Addehaid Gilje told NRK from Bryne, a small town in Rogaland County, “We have a duty to our country to preserve our Christian values, and not least to protect our children against the terrible, evil forces of Islam.”

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Breivik charged with terror attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anders Breivik in handcuffsAnders Behring Breivik, who confessed to attacks which left 77 people dead and 242 injured in Norway, has been charged with terror acts. Defence lawyers went to his prison near the capital, Oslo, to present their client with the charges.

Prosecutors have indicated they consider Breivik mentally ill and will seek to have him committed to psychiatric care rather than jailed.

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OSCE Personal Representative urges participating States to take hate crimes against Muslims seriously

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In view of the Oslo massacre last summer and the spate of neo-Nazi serial killings in Germany, the OSCE Chairperson’s Personal Representative on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims Ambassador Adil Akhmetov expressed concerns over the feeling of insecurity among Muslim communities across the OSCE region.

“Although the efforts of the Norwegian and German authorities to bring to justice those responsible for such heinous crimes are commendable, there remain serious concerns about the effectiveness of measures to combat manifestations of intolerance, in particular hate crimes, and discrimination against Muslims,” Akhmetov said.

Akhmetov warned about the risk of  “falling into the error of categorizing such deplorable crimes as isolated acts of certain marginal personalities”, and urged OSCE participating States to look into the broader context and address the root causes of racism, xenophobia and intolerance.

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Breivik demands medal for killing ‘Labour Party traitors’ he holds responsible for ‘Islamic colonisation’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anders Breivik in handcuffsThe Norway gunman who killed 77 people in twin attacks in July asked an Oslo court Monday to immediately free him and demanded the country’s highest military award, sparking derision from survivors.

Showing no sign of remorse, 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik said the massacre was “a preventive attack against state traitors” who were guilty of “ethnic cleansing” due to their support for a multi-cultural society. “I do not accept imprisonment. I demand to be immediately released,” the rightwing extremist told the court before it ordered that he be held in detention until his trial opens on April 16.

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Norwegian police chief criticised for downplaying far-right terror threat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Activists have reacted against recent statements by a Norwegian police chief who said radical Islam remains the main threat in Norway and played down the threat of far-right terrorism, despite the attacks by a right-wing extremist that killed 77 people last summer.

The director of Norway’s Police Security Service, Janne Kristiansen, told a news conference on Tuesday that her agency would focus on dangers from home-grown Islamic extremism, even though attacks targeting Norway’s left wing have increased since the July massacre, Reuters reported.

“In recent years we have seen a development in which (Muslim) people raised in Norway become radicalized and for whom Norway and Norwegian society are the enemy,” Reuters quoted Kristiansen as saying.

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Norwegian black metal band nominated for music prize despite anti-Islam lyrics

Posted on by Bob Pitt

TaakeA black metal band nominated for Norway’s top music prize has rejected claims that lyrics on its latest album go too far in their criticism of Islam.

Taake’s nomination for the Spellemann Prize in the Best Metal Album category has sparked a strong reaction from listeners who find some of the band’s lyrics objectionable, newspaper Aftenposten reports. In the song Orkan (“Hurricane”) on its latest album, Noregs Vaapen, the band sings: “To hell with Muhammad and the Mohammedans” and their “unforgivable customs”. It ends with the line: “Norway will soon awaken”.

Marte Thorsby, chairman of the prize committee’s board, denied any assertion that the jury must not have listened to the album properly before announcing the nomination. “We enjoy full freedom of expression in Norway and a Spellemann jury is not going to censor content in any way,” she told Aftenposten.

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How Islamophobes lie about rapes in Oslo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Earlier this year we dealt with the lies spread by “comedian” Pat Condell with regard to rapes in Oslo, which he claimed were carried out exclusively by “Muslim immigrants using rape as a weapon of cultural terrorism”.

LoonWatch has a piece by Farha Khaled (also posted on her blog) that exposes the way in which the same baseless claim has been used by many on the Islamophobic right, including the Israeli website Arutz Sheva. She wrote to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police, and received the following reply:

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