The whole country is in shock today. This is such a horrible tragedy, and I can’t imagine the terror the people at Utøya have been through. Those poor kids.
Utøya has been the site of a summer camp for the Labour party’s youth movement (AUF) since the 1950s, and it’s actually owned by the youth movement. These kids and young people are politically active and many of them will be (would have been) part of the country’s political future. The Prime Minister, for instance, has participated in the summer camp since he was a teen himself.
According to NRK, the police currently believe just one person is responsible for all of this. A 32-year old self-described conservative Christian according to his Facebook page. He’s apparently been active on some Internet forums expressing anti-muslim and anti-multiculturalist sentiments, but not stated plans for something like this.
Can’t find it on BBC, but one Danish news site reports this as well. When I search for “flere skyttere på Utøya” (multiple shooters on Utøya) I can only find one article from NRK (Norwegian TV) where an eyewitness mentions several shooters. The official story still is that the guy did it on his own. I’m shocked.
If it was just the bombing… bombing is killing at a distance, something that could be politically motivated, something that might even make a bizarre kind of sense, in a way… but gunning down 80 people… young people, teenagers? At point blank range? While looking them in the eye?
That can’t be about terrorism or extremism, right wing, left wing, whatever. That is pure evil. There is no sense in that. That is beyond comprehension.
Press conference right now: 7 killed in Oslo, 84 on Utøya. The number may still rise, according to police. According to police, the man arrested on Utøya belongs to a right wing extremist group in Østlandet (a part of Norway).
ETA: The same guy has been charged with both incidents. No motive so far.
It will be interesting to learn the motive. Reports have already started referring to the [suspected] shooter as “extreme right-wing”…what does this mean in Norway’s political system?
I’m surprised the shooter was taken into custody - the usual outcomes in these situations seem to be suicide or death by police. Surely he couldn’t have planned to still be alive at this point - he certainly couldn’t have expected to get away. I wonder if we’ll hear anything about how the arrest went down.
A spokesman for the police was on the news explaining that the suspect was apprehended, and was being questioned. When he said that, he paused for a second, and a shiver seemed to go through him, as if was thinking “we have captured a monster”.
Or I’m projecting.
A picture taken from the guy’s Facebook page is over all over the news. A good-looking guy, blond, young, handsome, well dressed. He looks like a stock broker or a host on a TV show. It’s certainly nothing like what we imagined the face of death to look like.
Usually, it means neo-Nazi, racist fascism with a special hate against Muslims and other brown-skinned immigrants, and also a hate against the political left including the Labor party (currently in the Government).
The assumed perpetrator fits all of this.
It’s hard to call anything “a good thing” on a day like this, but it was a good thing that the police were able to capture the guy alive. We’ll get some more answers that way.
