Norway’s tolerance tested on massacre anniversary

Associated Press

OSLO, Norway

Norway’s commitment to face xenophobia with tolerance on the first anniversary of bomb and gun attacks by a confessed right-wing killer is being put to the test by hostile reactions to an influx of Gypsies from Eastern Europe.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg says he has been disturbed by the tone of the debate over the small camps of makeshift huts set up by Gypsies in Oslo and other Norwegian cities.

After neighbors complained of unsanitary conditions, noise and illegal construction, anti- immigration politicians called for the Gypsies, also known as Roma, to be rounded up and bused out of Norway. Online, the debate has been raw, sometimes outright racist.

“Some of what we have seen is frightening,” Stoltenberg told Norwegian broadcaster TV2 this week. “Nobody shall be judged because they belong to a certain ethnic group.”

The anti-Gypsy sentiment has been no worse than elsewhere in Europe — in fact many of the Roma say they are treated better in Norway than in their home countries, including Romania and Bulgaria.

But the discussion comes at an uncomfortable time for Norway as it prepares to honor the 77 victims of the country’s worst peacetime massacre in memorial services across the country today.

Confessed killer Anders Behring Breivik, facing sentencing next month, has said his July 22, 2011, bombing of a government high-rise and shooting spree at a left-wing party’s youth camp were the opening shots in a war against multiculturalism.

Virtually all of Norway condemned the attacks — even far-right groups — and Stoltenberg moved the nation with his call for more openness, democracy and inclusiveness in response to the tragedy.

The debate over immigration, more civil in Norway than in many parts of Europe, was muted for months. But a harsher tone returned as authorities received complaints over the Roma camps.