In Norway, on Thursday, July 22, church bells commemorate ten years since the 2011 massacre when right-wing extremist Anders Bering-Breivik attacked Oslo and killed 77 people on the island of Utah.
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Addressing the survivors of the terrorist attacks and the relatives of the victims, Prime Minister Erna Sulberg emphasized empathy and tolerance.
“We must not allow hatred to be countered,” the prime minister said at a memorial ceremony in the capital, Oslo, near the government’s headquarters, near Bravewick’s first attack.
Much has been done over the past decade to improve security, fight radicalization and extremism, Sulberg said.
“We need to build the most important preparedness in each of us,” the prime minister emphasized, adding that it would serve as a “fortified rampart against intolerance and hate speech for empathy and tolerance.”
Shortly before midnight, church bells rang throughout the country in honor of the victims.
In the afternoon, another ceremony took place on Ūteija Island, where Breivīks killed 69 people in the Labor Party youth camp.
Shortly after the attacks, the then Prime Minister of the Labor Party and the current Secretary General of NATO Jenss Stoltenbergs promised to respond to the terrorist attacks with “more democracy”, “more humanity”.
“Ten years ago, we responded to hatred with love,” Stoltenberg said at a memorial service at the church on Thursday.
“But hatred is still present,” he added.
Ten years after the tragic events, many survivors of the Uthia massacre believe that Norway still not sufficiently confronted the ideology that motivated Breivik.
“Deadly racism and right-wing extremism are still alive among us,” Astrid Eide Hoema, the current chairman of the Labor Party Youth League, told the ceremony on Thursday.
“They live on the web, they live at dinner tables, they live in many people, where many other people listen,” she said.
“Now, once and for all, we have to say that we do not accept racism, that we do not accept hatred.”
On July 22, 2011, Bering-Breivik carried out two bloody attacks. He first blew up a mine near the government building in Oslo, killing eight people, but then, disguised as a police officer, staged a massacre at the Labor Party’s youth summer camp on Uteja Island, killing 69 people.
This is the most serious crime committed in Norway since the Second World War.
Buring-Breawick claimed that the murders were committed because of his opposition to state-sponsored multiculturalism, and in August 2012 he was sentenced to 21 years in prison, which can be extended if he is still found to be dangerous after that date.
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