The World Islamic Mission’s mosque in Oslo has boosted security measures after somone left a pig’s head and a Nazi flag inside the mosque’s entrance during Friday prayer services.
“It’s clear that someone has done this to provoke us,” the chairman of World Islamic Mission, Jehangir Bahadur, told newspaper Aften on Monday. He called the act “offensive” and “a clear threat” against the mosque. “Pork is strictly forbidden in Islam, and that makes the incident very serious,” he said.
Bahadur said the mosque has also received racist e-mail that it hadn’t been taking very seriously, but that’s changed now. World Islamic Officials reported the unwelcome delivery of the pig’s head and Nazi flag, which occurred just before Christmas, to Oslo police.
Tom Gulliksen of the Grønland Police Station, nearest the mosque, said a police investigation was suspended for lack of evidence, but it will be taken up again if new leads emerge. A surveillance camera picked up an image of the person making the delivery, but it was too grainy to reveal any identity.
Both the flag and the pig’s head were sent to the police crime lab. Since Nazi items were involved, Norway’s criminal intelligence unit PST was notified as well. “I think that the person who did this is either unbalanced, or was mounting a PR stunt,” Gulliksen said.