There is no reason to believe that Norway mass murder suspect Anders Behring Breivik is insane, District Court Judge Torkjel Nesheim said Monday.
There is also no evidence he had accomplices in the bomb and gun rampage in which he is accused of killing 77 people this summer, the judge said. The judge ordered him held in custody for a further 12 weeks, with visits and correspondence controlled by the authorities for the first eight, and a ban on media for the first four.
More than 500 people packed into a court in Oslo, Norway, to see the suspect's first public appearance, said Irene Ramm, head of press for the Oslo court. A woman whose daughter was killed in the massacre said she could not understand "how a human being could do something like that."
"That's why I had to be here today. I don't understand, so I had to see, had to be here," said the woman, who was identified only as "Carina" on Norway's TV2. "He looked cold, completely cold," she said.
He was not allowed to deliver a speech he had prepared, the station reported. Breivik said he did not recognize the authority of the court on the grounds that he opposes the multi-cultural society it is part of, TV2 said. He was stopped on several occasions when he started referring to himself as Commander of the Knights Templar, a title he used in his 1,500-page manifesto, the station reported.
"I interrupted Breivik during today's hearing because I only wanted to hear him about matters relating to today's hearing," Judge Nesheim said. "This was not the main trial where he gets to explain himself. I did not want to give him the opportunity to use this hearing as a platform for him to express his views."
Until now, the proceedings for Breivik have been held behind closed doors. The hearing was to determine whether to keep Breivik in jail until his trial in the spring. Prosecutors expect it to begin in March or April, the judge said.
Survivors return to scene of island rampage
He is accused of killing dozens of people in a bomb attack in Oslo followed by a shooting rampage on nearby Utoya island. Eight people were killed in a bombing in Oslo; 69 young people were killed on Utoya island, in the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II. The young people were attending a Labour Party youth camp. Most of the 700 campers ranged in age from 16-22, with some as young as 13.
Breivik has pleaded not guilty but admits carrying out the attacks, the judge said.
"The accused is still suspected on probable cause of criminal acts, as described in the charges. He has admitted the bombing in central Oslo and also the shooting on Utoya. The investigation has also confirmed this," Nesheim said.
He is described by authorities as a right-wing Christian extremist. The 1,500-page manifesto attributed to Breivik was posted on the Internet and is critical of Muslim immigration and European liberalism.
CNN
Showing posts with label multi-culturalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label multi-culturalism. Show all posts
November 14, 2011
October 06, 2009
We beat the far right once, and we can do it again
What are we to make of the English Defence League, a new far-right white nationalist group in the UK?
Obviously its opponents are concerned to produce a response to the EDL that can protect and defend pluralism in the UK. Indeed, around the western world there are similar movements and corresponding responses, but sometimes the responses can go off track – and it is important to get these things right.
It would be a mistake to think of the EDL as a radical, fringe, crazed group of people with no relationship to wider British society. As mainstream rhetoric has become more tolerant of frightful intolerance, it has became more acceptable for a group such as the EDL to form.
This is not to say that British society as a whole, or even the British right wing as a whole, is responsible for the EDL. The point is that the EDL might never have existed if the race relations discourse in the UK had not come to this point of blurring the lines between what is acceptable and what is not.
The emergence of the EDL and the resurgence of the far right in other European countries is not something we can understand by just looking at 2009. The roots of this are far older – and perhaps a key event was the failed victory of the multiculturalist movement in the 1990s. Yes, that’s right, a “failed victory”: something we need to understand as we respond to, and I hope overcome, the next phase of the far right in Europe.
We have to remember where this began. As European countries began to experience wide-scale immigration in the 1950s onwards, their societies changed for ever. Decades later it became clear that the immigrants, their children and increasingly their grandchildren were going nowhere. They were there to stay – and Europe had to figure out what to do.
But to begin with, Europe did not want to admit how much had to change. People tend to remember this period with less sympathy than it is due. No, huge numbers of Europeans did not wake up suddenly and welcome all the changes that they had endured in such a short time. And quite frankly, no one should have expected them to. What society has reacted to such change in such a short time with exemplary behaviour? Actually, we can’t compare it to any other time: there was more widespread population change in the 20th century than at any time in human history.
Yet in the second half of the 20th century, perhaps because of its failure to protect its own citizens in the first half, Europe did response positively. Multiculturalism was that response – and in the 1990s it seemed to have won the battle. Multiculturalists across the world spoke of how narrow notions of national identity in the 20th century were finally opened up. From that point on it seemed that pluralism and respect for diversity would be the default, and narrower versions of what it meant to be European/British/French/German/etc. would have to prove their worth in light of the multiculturalist movement.
Obviously, the far right (and certain portions of the right) did not take this lying down, but their time had passed. The left was regaining ground across Europe, and the centre and centre-right also had a great deal of sympathy for the claims of minority groups, especially as some of those groups slowly moved up the socio-economic ladder. Huge majorities of European populations accepted that what might have constituted European identity 50 years before was no longer sufficient. Multiculturalism had scored a great victory.
The biggest problem was a failure of multiculturalism – not “the” failure, which is what the far-right would have us believe. But “a” failure: having destroyed a narrow version of national identity, multiculturalists did not provide a replacement that gained sufficient ground across Europe. At the time, fortunately, European societies had no need of replacement.
Then 9/11 happened. The far right had a new target. Race became less relevant, but religion became more so. Looking back on the material of groups such the British National Party in the past 10 years, race has been given less emphasis and religion is increasingly the fault line: in particular, Islam. With the Madrid bombings and the attacks in London in July 2005, that was sealed.
Years later, history has shown that partly because of the absence of a sustainable notion of national identity, the far right has managed to deliver some of its ideas far beyond its small natural constituency. It’s not just a few radical nuts who believe that Islam and the West are on a cultural collision course on the streets of European cities; significant portions of all sectors of the political spectrum are sympathetic to that idea.
In that sense, the far right has achieved a victory. They could incite a much more significant one: a redesignation of national identity that would put Muslims, Asians, Turks, Arabs, blacks and many other groups outside the definition of British/French/German/etc. Such a definition would be wrong, but it would be attractive because of its simplicity and because of the fears that many in Europe harbour about Muslim Europeans.
But this is not a foregone conclusion, because the truths of multiculturalism remain. They deserve to be defended.
Dr H A Hellyer is Fellow of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick in the UK, and author of Muslims of Europe: the ‘Other’ Europeans (Edinburgh University Press)
The National
Obviously its opponents are concerned to produce a response to the EDL that can protect and defend pluralism in the UK. Indeed, around the western world there are similar movements and corresponding responses, but sometimes the responses can go off track – and it is important to get these things right.
It would be a mistake to think of the EDL as a radical, fringe, crazed group of people with no relationship to wider British society. As mainstream rhetoric has become more tolerant of frightful intolerance, it has became more acceptable for a group such as the EDL to form.
This is not to say that British society as a whole, or even the British right wing as a whole, is responsible for the EDL. The point is that the EDL might never have existed if the race relations discourse in the UK had not come to this point of blurring the lines between what is acceptable and what is not.
The emergence of the EDL and the resurgence of the far right in other European countries is not something we can understand by just looking at 2009. The roots of this are far older – and perhaps a key event was the failed victory of the multiculturalist movement in the 1990s. Yes, that’s right, a “failed victory”: something we need to understand as we respond to, and I hope overcome, the next phase of the far right in Europe.
We have to remember where this began. As European countries began to experience wide-scale immigration in the 1950s onwards, their societies changed for ever. Decades later it became clear that the immigrants, their children and increasingly their grandchildren were going nowhere. They were there to stay – and Europe had to figure out what to do.
But to begin with, Europe did not want to admit how much had to change. People tend to remember this period with less sympathy than it is due. No, huge numbers of Europeans did not wake up suddenly and welcome all the changes that they had endured in such a short time. And quite frankly, no one should have expected them to. What society has reacted to such change in such a short time with exemplary behaviour? Actually, we can’t compare it to any other time: there was more widespread population change in the 20th century than at any time in human history.
Yet in the second half of the 20th century, perhaps because of its failure to protect its own citizens in the first half, Europe did response positively. Multiculturalism was that response – and in the 1990s it seemed to have won the battle. Multiculturalists across the world spoke of how narrow notions of national identity in the 20th century were finally opened up. From that point on it seemed that pluralism and respect for diversity would be the default, and narrower versions of what it meant to be European/British/French/German/etc. would have to prove their worth in light of the multiculturalist movement.
Obviously, the far right (and certain portions of the right) did not take this lying down, but their time had passed. The left was regaining ground across Europe, and the centre and centre-right also had a great deal of sympathy for the claims of minority groups, especially as some of those groups slowly moved up the socio-economic ladder. Huge majorities of European populations accepted that what might have constituted European identity 50 years before was no longer sufficient. Multiculturalism had scored a great victory.
The biggest problem was a failure of multiculturalism – not “the” failure, which is what the far-right would have us believe. But “a” failure: having destroyed a narrow version of national identity, multiculturalists did not provide a replacement that gained sufficient ground across Europe. At the time, fortunately, European societies had no need of replacement.
Then 9/11 happened. The far right had a new target. Race became less relevant, but religion became more so. Looking back on the material of groups such the British National Party in the past 10 years, race has been given less emphasis and religion is increasingly the fault line: in particular, Islam. With the Madrid bombings and the attacks in London in July 2005, that was sealed.
Years later, history has shown that partly because of the absence of a sustainable notion of national identity, the far right has managed to deliver some of its ideas far beyond its small natural constituency. It’s not just a few radical nuts who believe that Islam and the West are on a cultural collision course on the streets of European cities; significant portions of all sectors of the political spectrum are sympathetic to that idea.
In that sense, the far right has achieved a victory. They could incite a much more significant one: a redesignation of national identity that would put Muslims, Asians, Turks, Arabs, blacks and many other groups outside the definition of British/French/German/etc. Such a definition would be wrong, but it would be attractive because of its simplicity and because of the fears that many in Europe harbour about Muslim Europeans.
But this is not a foregone conclusion, because the truths of multiculturalism remain. They deserve to be defended.
Dr H A Hellyer is Fellow of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick in the UK, and author of Muslims of Europe: the ‘Other’ Europeans (Edinburgh University Press)
The National
Labels:
English Defence League,
far-right,
multi-culturalism
May 25, 2007
Corsham anti-BNP protest planned
Anti-BNP protesters will be taking to the streets of Corsham to show their disgust at a member of the far-right party claiming a seat on the town council. A rally and protest has been organised for Monday, June 11, after BNP Cllr Michael Simpkins took the Rudloe ward uncontested at the recent elections. He made his first appearance at Corsham Town Council last week and was greeted by protesters outside the town hall.
Now one local campaigner is organising a much bigger event to show what he says is the "strong anti-fascist feeling" in Corsham.
Kyle Thornhill, 21, who has lived in Corsham all his life, has had leaflets and posters printed to publicise the event, and is calling on everyone in Corsham and the surrounding area who objects to BNP involvement in the town to get involved.
He said: "Myself, like a lot of local people, did not get to hear that this BNP candidate was standing until it was too late to do anything about it, because if we had I would have stood against him to stop them getting in. Although there was the protest last week, again not enough people heard about it until too late, so what we are doing is organising a protest, letting plenty of people know about it and giving them plenty of time. The response I've had from all the people I've met has been overwhelmingly positive, with the only negative comments coming from BNP people via websites."
Mr Thornhill, whose great grandfather came from Barbados, says the rally will also celebrate Britain's multi-culturalism. African drummers are expected to attend and there will be a host of foreign cuisines on offer.
"The vast majority of people in Corsham do not want the BNP here, and it has been inspiring to hear the comments from all the people I've spoken to," said Mr Thornhill. "I'm sure there will be a very big turnout."
The protest starts at 5.30pm. For more information email notobnp@ hotmail.co.uk
Rudloe Air Cadet leader and Corsham BNP chairman Mike Howson has rubbished claims that he intends to resign his position as a youth mentor. He said: "I will not be standing down. My work as a youth leader and my political views remain completely separate. Those with leftist views are using every trick in the book to try to get me removed, which is sad as it is only the youngsters who suffer."
This is Wiltshire
Now one local campaigner is organising a much bigger event to show what he says is the "strong anti-fascist feeling" in Corsham.
Kyle Thornhill, 21, who has lived in Corsham all his life, has had leaflets and posters printed to publicise the event, and is calling on everyone in Corsham and the surrounding area who objects to BNP involvement in the town to get involved.
He said: "Myself, like a lot of local people, did not get to hear that this BNP candidate was standing until it was too late to do anything about it, because if we had I would have stood against him to stop them getting in. Although there was the protest last week, again not enough people heard about it until too late, so what we are doing is organising a protest, letting plenty of people know about it and giving them plenty of time. The response I've had from all the people I've met has been overwhelmingly positive, with the only negative comments coming from BNP people via websites."
Mr Thornhill, whose great grandfather came from Barbados, says the rally will also celebrate Britain's multi-culturalism. African drummers are expected to attend and there will be a host of foreign cuisines on offer.
"The vast majority of people in Corsham do not want the BNP here, and it has been inspiring to hear the comments from all the people I've spoken to," said Mr Thornhill. "I'm sure there will be a very big turnout."
The protest starts at 5.30pm. For more information email notobnp@ hotmail.co.uk
Rudloe Air Cadet leader and Corsham BNP chairman Mike Howson has rubbished claims that he intends to resign his position as a youth mentor. He said: "I will not be standing down. My work as a youth leader and my political views remain completely separate. Those with leftist views are using every trick in the book to try to get me removed, which is sad as it is only the youngsters who suffer."
This is Wiltshire
Labels:
anti-BNP,
anti-fascist,
BNP,
Corsham,
Michael Simpkins,
multi-culturalism
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