Muhammad Ali writes letter to people of Norway

OSLO — Legendary boxer Muhammed Ali has spoken of his devastation over the deadly attacks in Norway on July 22, in an open letter published Tuesday, rejecting the fears of multiculturalism that lay behind the massacre.

"I am heartbroken, not only due to the senseless deaths of so many innocent victims, including many young people, but also because of the alleged reasoning behind these heinous acts," the American sporting icon wrote in a letter published by the VG daily.

"Fears of multiculturalism demonstrate a lack of understanding of the commonality that exists among people across ethnic, racial and religious lines," added the former three-time world heavyweight champion.

Muhammad Ali, now 69 and suffering from Parkinson's disease, is himself a convert to Islam, the religion reviled by Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to carrying out the attacks which he called part of a "crusade" against a "Muslim invasion" of Europe.

The man who confessed to carrying out the massacre, Anders Behring Breivik, has said the attacks were part of a plan to start a cultural revolution and purge Europe of Muslims while also punishing politicians who have embraced multiculturalism.

Ali, a Muslim, said those who commit unspeakable acts in the name of race and religion "fail to understand that we share far more with our fellow beings than those aspects that set us apart."

He went on to say that the best way to honor the victims in Norway is to reach out and embrace others in a celebration of common human values and aspirations.

"The collective power of such individual proactive acts can have a tremendous aggregate impact and provide a lasting honor to those who are no longer able to take such action themselves," Ali wrote.

Ali's spokesman, Craig Bankey, said the former heavyweight champion, who suffers from Parkinson's, communicated his thoughts in the letter to his wife.

Lesbian Couple Rescued 40 Teens in Norway, Lack of Media Coverage Questioned

Full week after their incredibly heroic efforts made the pages of Finland's largest daily newspaper, their story has bobbed its way across the Atlantic and onto our shores. It concerns Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen, a lesbian couple from Norway who were sharing a quiet dinner near the doomed island of Utoya when they began to "hear gunfire and screaming" coming from the island: Anders Behring Breivik's shooting rampage had begun.

We were eating. Then shooting and then the awful screaming. We saw how the young people ran in panic into the lake," says Dale to HS in an interview.

The couple immediately took action and pushed the boat into Lake Tyrifjorden.

Dalen and Hansen drove the boat to the island, picked up victims in shock, the young and wounded, and transported them to the opposite shore to the mainland. Between runs they saw that the bullets had hit the right side of the boat.

Since there were so many and not all fit at once aboard, they returned to the island four times.

They were able to rescue 40 young people from the clutches of the killer.

Toril Hansen and Hege Dalen, a married lesbian couple, were dining on the opposite shore from the youth campsite on Utoya Island when Anders Breivik opened fire. The couple rushed to the aid of those trapped on the island -- putting themselves in grave danger to rescue 40 teens.

Finnish newspaper was apparently the first major news outlet to report on the dramatic rescue, and the translated story then began to appear on English-language LGBT blogs and newspapers. The blog Talk About Equality published the following translation:

Hege Dalen and her spouse, Toril Hansen were near Utöyan having dinner on the opposite shore across from the ill-fated campsite, when they began to hear gunfire and screaming on the island.

"We were eating. Then shooting and then the awful screaming. We saw how the young people ran in panic into the lake," says Dalen to HS Helsingin Sanomat in an interview.

New extremism in Norway

OSLO, Norway — Warning voters about the danger of increasing Muslim influence in Norway, the Progress Party rode a wave of anti-immigrant feeling and took nearly a quarter of the seats in parliament in the country's last election.

Now one of Europe's most successful right-wing parties is on the defensive after one of its former members massacred 77 people in the name of fighting immigration.

The Progress Party has confirmed that Anders Behring Breivik, the confessed perpetrator of last month's massacre, was a member between 1999 and 2006. That has focused intense criticism on its platform of sharply cutting the immigration that is changing Norway's once virtually homogenous population of white Christians.

"They have to change their tone," said Magnus Takvam, a political commentator for Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. "They have to reconsider their vocabulary."

Progress Party leader Siv Jensen has been criticized for warning of a stealth Islamization of Norway. And in May, the party's leader in Oslo called the governing Labor Party's immigration policy a "demographic experiment" and said a left-wing political elite was allowing Western civilization to be eroded by Muslim immigrants with opposing values.

Breivik also condemned leftists for their tolerant attitude towards immigrants from the Muslim world, but Jensen, 42, noted that he condemned all of Norway's political parties, "mine included," in the rambling 1,500-word manifesto he released before the massacre.

Breivik, 32, says he grew disillusioned with the party and concluded that the only way to stop what he called the "Islamization" of Norway and Europe was through armed struggle.

"He has obviously developed some very, very strange, sick ideas over the years," Jensen told The Associated Press. "His manifesto is perversely unique and cannot be linked to any organization or legal political party of Norway."

First elected into Parliament in 1973, the Progress Party has steadily gained support for its calls to sharply cut immigration and lower taxes, primarily by spending more of Norway's oil revenue now, instead of saving it for future generations.

No longer a maverick opposition group, the Progress Party now boasts support that few of its counterparts in Europe can match. It won 41 of the 169 seats in Parliament in the 2009 election, its best result ever. Only the Labor Party is bigger, with 64 seats.

But the July 22 terror attacks, which shook Norway to the core, have generated a wave of sympathy for Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's Labor Party, the apparent target of the attacks. Polls show its support surging, ahead of local elections in September.

Jensen said Breivik kept a low profile in the party and never revealed his murderous plans.

"He didn't say much, he didn't do much, he didn't take part in our activities at all," Jensen told AP in her wood-paneled office decorated with an American flag — a gift from Republicans Abroad — and a tiny bust of President Ronald Reagan. "So we could not foresee any of this."

In his manifesto, Breivik says he left the Progress Party after concluding "that it would be impossible to change the system democratically." Describing himself as defender of Europe's Christian heritage, he couldn't accept that once homogenous Norway is now an increasingly diverse nation, where more than 12 percent of the 5 million residents are immigrants or children of immigrants — about half of them from Asia, Africa or Latin America.

For many years in a row, it has been in the United Nations' list of “the best place to live”. The state-society relation that exists in this country is remarkably distinct. It is all too common to see the top politicians mingling freely with people on their way to office, usually by foot. It was just a few years ago that the Prime Minister, Mr Jan Stoltenberg, applied for permission to go to work by bicycle. Despite the looming threat of global terrorism, Norwegian police do not carry guns. Perhaps, it is the only country that celebrates its national day without a weapon parade.

The booming oil revenues created an influx of immigrants, both skilled workers and political refugees. Unlike many other oil-rich nations, the Norwegian government tries to maintain a social welfare system that is ‘generous' to immigrants. The influx of ‘others' transformed the country from its original identity as a single race, a single religion and a single language into a multicultural and multiracial society.

This triggered the emergence of a few right-wing parties with an open anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policy. They managed to gain power in many Norwegian counties. However, an extreme right-wing was not apparent until the horrific event of July 22. The Internet postings by Anders Behring Breivik, perpetrator of the Oslo carnage, clearly indicates that he is a fundamental anti-Islamist preoccupied with phobias about a ‘Eurabia', a term denoting the political possibility of a demographic take-over of Europe by the prolific immigrant Muslims. Anders Behring Breivik transcended set ways of unleashing right-wing violence at two crucial levels. Firstly, he adopted the terrorists' modus operandi and changed the usual pattern of racial violence.

Like the acts of Jihadi terrorists, his ‘mission' involved meticulous planning, evoking terror, and inflicting irreplaceable human casualties. Secondly, he made a drastic redefinition of the target, that is “who is to be killed?” He did not target the immigrants or Muslims in particular.

While pursuing his goal, Breivik sought to bypass the old-fashioned mode of racial violence — killing or intimidating the “other”. What he preferred instead was terrorising and killing his own ethnic peers.

By sparing the immigrants and targeting the natives, what Breivik provided to the far-right is a novel starting premise to the already existing multicultural debates. The very presence of immigrants might remind the natives of what they had to pay for bearing the “burden of multiculturalism”. A rigorous sentence would dissipate the hate towards the culprit, but the constant presence of immigrants might keep on reminding the natives of what they lost one black Friday.

The statement that Breivik made after the arrest reveals that far-right extremists are in search of radically-novel starting premises and operational possibilities. For him, what needs to be checked immediately is the voyaging of the Norwegian state towards a multicultural identity. But unlike his neo-Nazi precursors, Breivik found it worth only when set out to “get some natives”.

There was no ‘direct place' for the immigrant foreigners in his scheme of things, as they are not the dearest of the State. He chose the youth leaders of the ruling Labour party, which, as he said before the court, is “deconstructing Norwegian culture by mass-importing Muslims”. His comment while admitting the guilt “the killings are gruesome but necessary”, the request he made for an open court hearing, and his claim about “two more cells” outside Norway — all points towards the birth pangs of a new far-right breed in Europe.

The horror events that played out on July 22 cannot be contained to the Norwegian local politics. It has certain subtle socio-political undertones of global relevance, particularly that of Europe. The Norwegian premier has insisted that the country would respond with more openness and greater political participation. However, once relieved of the shock from the dire event, some of the far-right leaders in Europe have started sympathising with Breivik's underlying motivation.

Seeing the Oslo carnage as the fault of a multi-racial society, far-right extremists from Italy, Sweden and France blame the very idea of multiculturalism. “In a Norwegian Norway this tragedy would never have happened”, was the comment by a local Swedish politician. These responses clearly indicate that the ‘‘Norway shootings” is the warning symptom of a new far-right political paranoia, rather than mere horrific acts of a deranged mind.

Time for Norway to face its Islamophobia

Last week’s tragedy in Oslo, where Anders Breivik shot and killed almost a hundred innocent people, will for some time be a case-study in how one of the most progressive countries in the world, Norway, ‘produced’ a murdering psycho-path who hated a certain group of people (in Breivik’s case, Muslims) so much he was willing to kill his own people for being more tolerant than him.

How can we explain the emergence of a figure like Breivik? Is he reflective of Norwegian society and if so, where did the country go wrong? Or, if Breivik was an exception, was it something ‘forced’ upon him or chosen by him and, most importantly, what can Norwegian society do to prevent the (exceptional) creation of future Breiviks’?

What follows are three possible explanations:

1. This is a more or less isolated act and we can understand the tragedy entirely by examining the psyche or personality of Breivik. This would put the blame entirely in the mind of Breivik with the good news being that we should be glad that very few think – let alone act – like him. To take this route would be most unfortunate because to argue that this was a tragic fluke of personality would be, in fact, to argue that nothing can be done on a socio-political level. It’s all in Breivik’s mind.

The Malaysian corollary would be to suggest that a racist like Ibrahim Ali is in principle either a psycho or an evil person and it’s really no one else’s fault. The logical steps forward would be bring down the rain of punishment, isolation or forced silence on him and that’s that.

There is light and only this pervert was full of darkness.

2. We can look at the negative influences on Breivik’s life and emphasize how these influences run against the grain of Norwegian culture and society. This is less ‘comfortable’ than putting the sole blame on Breivik and some work would have to be done to ferret out these negative messages and deviant themes which have so tragically impacted at least one citizen’s mindset.

Malaysia-wise, this would involve questioning the subversive messages spread behind closed doors, looking at hidden messages in school textbooks, reading between the lines of various media and political parties communiqués’ and so on. This second paradigm continues to hold to a ‘true’ way for society and believes that people like Ali come about as a result of something counter to an original good.

There is still light and racism is a product or symptom of darkness.

3 Finally, the third more disturbing option, we could view Breivik’s violence as a manifestation of what was already and always there in Norwegian society. The bomb and the shootings were a sudden exposé of a dark underside, a side which was hidden yet necessary for a nation which wanted to nurture one of the most open and politically participative societies ever. This is to say that the violence witnessed last weekend is that which sustains the harmonious society witnessed for so long i.e. Norway the calm and prosperous nation is simply the flip-side of Norway the nation of potential mass-murderers. A peaceful multi-cultural democracy, according to this view, cannot persist for long without betraying the elitism, bigotry and totalitarianism inherent to and constitutive of this same democracy.

To be able to do what the terrorist of Oslo did on July 22, I think you have to be mad. But there are two kinds of madness: psychopathic and political.

These days, when a mad person with a Muslim background commits an act of terrorism, it is seen as a result of his or her religion. The clinical madness needed to be a killer on this scale is explained through the political madness of fundamentalism. But when a non-Muslim right-wing extremist, such as the terrorist of Oslo and Utoya or the Oklahoma City bomber, commits the same kind of atrocity, the political madness is said to result from clinical madness.

One of the most frightening things in the aftermath of last week’s murders is that Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto makes clear that his sort of political madness is not unknown to us. On the contrary, many of his words have been used time and again in Norway in recent years. Phrases such as “secret Islamification” and “Muslim takeover” have appeared not just on obscure Web pages but also on TV and radio, in articles and in the general debate. Islamophobia has become an accepted part of our public life.

Thirty years ago it would have been different. In the Norway where I grew up, it was not possible to be taken seriously in public discourse if you claimed that there was an essential difference between people of different religions, races or nationality. The Norway I grew up in was politically correct. Teachers would stop you in class if someone said that Muslims were more likely to be killers, black people more likely to be stupid or white people morally superior. Newspapers wouldn’t print articles claiming such things, and no one in their senses would arrange debates on the idea that foreigners posed a danger to the Norwegian way of life. But political correctness has become a punch line over the past two decades, and somewhere along the way we lost decency in public debate.

Indeed, after 20 years of wars in or against countries in the Middle East, 10 years after the horrors of Sept. 11 and in the aftermath of this terrorism, we no longer speak about people of other religions or nations as if they were as humane as ourselves. Instead, we turn them into enemies. All over Europe we have grown used to hearing of conspiracies on Eurabia, how Muslim women give birth to many children to take over Europe, how “their” culture is less developed than ours, “their” religion is more inclined toward war, “their” humanity less than ours. What was extreme 25 years ago has become commonplace today — not just in online debates but far into academic circles in Norway. And as the general conversation has become more extreme, the extreme has to move further out.

Some have said that Norway lost its innocence on July 22. Unfortunately, that is not completely true. A country that has been at war in Afghanistan for 10 years, that has fought in Iraq and that is an eager bomber of Tripoli cannot be called innocent. But it has been a good country to live in, a largely welcoming and egalitarian community. I hope the solidarity that has arisen from our collective sorrow can make it even better.

Nobody but the killer bears responsibility for the atrocities in Oslo. But our society has a responsibility to shift our public debate. We are responsible for the wars we wage, the words we use and the way we treat people who are different from ourselves. This is a responsibility we in Norway have not taken in recent years.

If something good might come out of the Oslo terror, I hope it will be a change in the way we talk and think about “others.” On the ruins of our government buildings and the lost youth of Utoya we have the possibility to create a society in which we will grant people the same humanity regardless of religion, nation, gender or sexual orientation. Norway must take back the political correctness of my youth. We must regain decency in our public debate.

Suspect in Norway attacks bought chemicals, tools on eBay

As the dust settles on last week’s killing of 77 people in bombing and shooting attacks in Norway, the issue now facing Europe’s security authorities is overspill.

Will Anders Breivik’s massacre prove a call to arms for the far right of radical Christian fundamentalism?

Between information listed in Breivik’s online manifesto and further tracing of his movements, the Norwegian authorities have ascertained that he had extensive cont a c t s with ot h e r European individuals with far-right tendencies.

But while it seems that he discussed ideology and planning with these men, authorities believe that he orchestrated his act of terror more or less on his own.

The problem now is that his manifesto may act as a manual for radicalisation of the far right, as well as a ‘‘how-to’’ guide for the single terrorist.

The most difficult aspect of the operation for Breivik was the bombing in Oslo. Despite his careful amassing of a large amount of explosives - 950 kilogrammes of ammonia nitrate - he did not manage to kill more than eight people and did not demolish any buildings.

In more experienced hands, such a quantity of explosive material could have killed many more people and caused considerably more damage to infrastructure.

This means that law enforcement and intelligence agencies must now start to focus more on the ‘‘how’’ of terrorist attacks, rather than the ‘‘why’’, if they are to prevent them. In the recent past, racial and ethnic profiling was used extensively in an effort to contain terrorism.

However, a clever and adaptable terrorist or grouping will always try to circumvent this by turning such profiling on its head.

Richard Reid, the Briton who attempted to detonate a shoe-bomb on an American plane, was a convert to radicalism and did not come from a typical Islamic background.

And as Breivik has proved, there will always be the potential for individuals who have no outward connection to anything sinister to have their heads turned by obscure and dangerous ideologies.

National authorities will therefore have to adapt their anti-terrorism strategies.

While the Israelis have led the way in terms of monitoring websites and making contact with recruiting sergeants for radical groups, other governments will now have to devote more time and attention to who has the material and knowledge necessary to carry out acts of terrorism.

The Sunday Telegrah also said that Breivik, under the username "andrewbrei," used eBay to order a drill press vice, a full-face respirator and a "hazmat" suit.

In addition to the Oslo bombing, Breivik is accused of opening fire on Utoya Island, killing 69 people on July 22.

EBay Inc did not respond directly to the Sunday Telegraph report, but released a statement that made reference to the Norway attacks and said that the company is working with local authorities.

"We are deeply saddened by the recent events in Oslo and our thoughts are with the victims and families involved in this horrific incident. eBay and PayPal coordinate regularly with law enforcement around the world and we are assisting Norwegian law enforcement in their investigation," the company statement said.

An eBay spokewoman declined to comment further, citing an "ongoing criminal investigation."

Breivik, who is being held in solitary confinement at Ila Prison, near Oslo, mentioned eBay repeatedly in his purported 1,500-page manifesto that rants against Muslims and lays out meticulous plans to prepare for the attacks.

The author of the manifesto described how he used eBay to procure various items, some of which were not discovered during the Sunday Telegraph investigation, suggesting Breivik could have had more than one eBay account, the newspaper reported.

"Ebay is not the best place to look as it is mostly civilian body armour available. But now and then, some inexperienced sellers simply make a mistake and list high grade mil spec armour and some times, Ebay is unable to stop the auction in time, which allows you to 'swoop in and pick it up' with a winning bid. I finally managed to buy 2000 USD worth of plates," the manifesto author wrote.

At another place in the manifesto, the author told his readers: "Ebay is your friend."

Breivik has admitted carrying out the bombing in Oslo and the shootings on Utoya, his lawyer and a judge have said. He has also pleaded not guilty in court.

The attack on Utoya targeted members of the Norway Labour Party's youth movement as they attended a summer camp.

Norwegian authorities completed the identification of the dead last week, releasing the names of all 77. Their ages ranged from 14 to 61.

Christian terrorism

Christian terrorism comprises terrorist acts by groups or individuals who claim Christian motivations or goals for their actions. As with other forms of religious terrorism, Christian terrorists have relied on idiosyncratic or literal interpretations of the tenets of faith – in this case, the Bible. Such groups have used Old Testament and New Testament scriptures to justify violence and killing or to seek to bring about the "end times" described in the New Testament, while others have hoped to bring about a Christian theocracy.

United Kingdom

In 2005 the US Government banned Sinn Fein from fundraising following White House anger over the IRA’s continuing involvement in crime at the same time as the terrorist threat level in the U.K was raised to “substantial”.

England

The early modern period saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the introduction of Protestant state churches in each country. The Gunpowder Plot was a failed attempt to blow up the Palace of Westminster, the English seat of government. Peter Steinfels characterizes this plot as a notable case of religious terrorism.

The IRA had regarded bombing English targets as militarily and symbolic, they were responsible for attacks in England over decades, starting in 1939 then a new campaign commenced after Bloody Sunday, 1972. The IRA never attacked Scotland or Wales.

Northern Ireland

An editor has expressed a concern that this section lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole. Please help to create a more balanced presentation. Discuss and resolve this issue before removing this message. (July 2011)

Some scholars, such as Steve Bruce, a sociology professor at the University of Aberdeen, argue that the conflict in Northern Ireland is primarily a religious conflict, its economic and social considerations notwithstanding. Professor Mark Juergensmeyer has also argued that some acts of terrorism were "religious terrorism... - in these cases, Christianity".:19-20 Others, such as John Hickey, take a more guarded view.Writing in The Guardian, Susan McKay discussed religious fundamentalism in connection with the murder of Martin O'Hagan, a former inmate of the Maze prison and a reporter on crime and the paramilitaries. She attributed the murder to a "range of reasons," including "the gangsters didn't like what he wrote". The alleged killers claimed that they killed him for "crimes against the loyalist people".

The Orange Volunteers are a group infamous for carrying out simultaneous terrorist attacks on Catholic churches.

In 1999 Pastor Clifford Peeples of the Bethel Pentecostal Church was convicted of offences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and sentenced to ten years imprisonment after being found in possession of hand grenades and a pipe bomb intended for use against Catholics. Pastor John Somerville, an associate of Peeples, had previously been convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and had received a life sentence for his part in the Miami Showband massacre. RUC chief constable, Ronnie Flanagan dubbed Peeples and his associates "the demon pastors" – specialising in recounting lurid stories of Catholic savagery towards Protestants, and in finding biblical justifications for Protestant retaliation. Other notable individuals convicted for terrorism offences include Pastor Kenny McClinton, a convicted murderer who once advocated beheading Roman Catholics and impaling their heads on railings, and Billy Wright, a Born again Christian preacher who became one of the most feared paramilitary figures in Northern Ireland before being assassinated whilst incarcerated in prison.

India

Tripura

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a rebel group operating in Tripura, North-East India, has been described as engaging in terrorist violence motivated by their Christian beliefs.  It is classified by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism as one of the ten most active terrorist groups in the world, and has been accused of forcefully converting people to Christianity. The insurgency in Nagaland was originally led by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), and it is continued today by a faction named "NSCN–Isaac Muivah", which explicitly calls for a "Nagalim for Christ". The state government reports that the Baptist Church of Tripura supplies arms and gives financial support to the NLFT. In April 2000, the secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, Nagmanlal Halam, was arrested with a large quantity of explosives. He confessed to illegally buying and supplying explosives to the NLFT for two years. The NLFT has threatened to kill Hindus celebrating the annual five-day religious festival of Durga Puja and other religious celebrations. At least 20 Hindus in Tripura have been killed by the NLFT in two years for resisting forced conversion to Christianity. A leader of the Jamatia tribe, Rampada Jamatia, said that armed NLFT militants were forcibly converting tribal villagers to Christianity, which he said was a serious threat to Hinduism. It is believed that up to 5,000 tribal villagers were converted to Christianity by the NLFT in two years.

In August 2000, a tribal Hindu spiritual leader, Shanti Tripura, was shot dead by about ten guerrillas belonging to the NLFT who said it wanted to convert all people in the state to Christianity. In December 2000, Labh Kumar Jamatia, a religious leader of the state's second largest Hindu group, was kidnapped by the NLFT, and found dead in a forest in Dalak village in southern Tripura. According to police, rebels from the NLFT wanted Jamatia to convert to Christianity, but he refused. A local Marxist tribal leader, Kishore Debbarma, was clubbed to death in Tripura's Sadar (north) by militants belonging to the Biswamohan faction of the NLFT in May 2005. He was dragged away at gunpoint by a group of NLFT militants. His body was found with multiple head injuries in a roadside ditch in the Katabon area.

Assam

In Assam, the Manmasi National Christian Army (MNCA), an extremist group from the Hmar tribe, were charged with forcing Hindus to convert at gunpoint. Seven or more Hmar youths were charged with visiting Bhuvan Pahar, a Hindu village, armed with guns, and pressuring residents to convert to Christianity.They also desecrated temples by painting crosses on the walls with their blood. The Sonai police, along with the 5th Assam Rifles, arrested 13 members of the MNCA, including their commander-in-chief. Guns and ammunition were seized.

Orissa

See also: Religious violence in Orissa.

In 2007 a tribal spiritual Hindu monk, Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, accused Radhakant Nayak, chief of a local chapter of World Vision, and a former Rajya Sabha member from Orissa in the Indian National Congress party, of plotting to assassinate him. The Swami also said that World Vision was covertly pumping money into India for religious conversion during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and criticized the activities of Christian missionaries as going against tribal beliefs. In 2008, he was gunned down along with four disciples on the Hindu festive day of Krishna Janmashtami by a group of 30–40 armed men. Later, Maoist terrorist leader Sabyasachi Panda admitted responsibility for the assassination, saying that the Maoists had intervened in the religious dispute on behalf of Christians and Dalits. The non-governmental organization Justice on Trial disputed that there had been Maoist involvement, and quoted the Swami as claiming that Christian missionaries had earlier attacked him eight times.

Norway

The 2011 Norway attacks were two attacks against the government and civilian population, and a political summer camp in Norway on 22 July 2011. The first was a bomb explosion in Regjeringskvartalet, the executive government quarter of Oslo, at roughly 15:26, outside the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and other government buildings. The explosion killed seven people and injured several others. The second attack occurred about two hours later at a youth camp organized by the Workers' Youth League (AUF), the youth organization of the Norwegian Labour Party (AP), at the island of Utøya in Tyrifjorden, Buskerud. At least one armed gunman disguised as a policeman opened fire at the campers, killing 68 attendees.

Anders Behring Breivik has been arrested for the attacks.

Romania

Orthodox Christian movements in Romania, such as the Iron Guard and Lăncieri, which have been characterized by Yad Vashem and Stanley G. Payne as anti-semitic and fascist, respectively, were responsible for involvement in the Bucharest pogrom, and political murders during the 1930s.

Spain

The Spanish Inquisition was a so-called religious cleansing, directed by Spain's Queen Isabella. Spanish Jews were the main victims of this 300-year stretch of torture and butchery. The history of catholicism in Spain led to the formation of Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey.

Uganda

The Lord's Resistance Army, a cult guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, has been accused of using child soldiers and committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, porters, and sex slaves. A quasi-religious movement that mixes some aspects of Christian and Islamic beliefs with its own brand of spiritualism, it is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the "Holy Spirit" which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations.LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle.

United States

The End. Victoriously slaying Catholic influence in the U.S. Illustration by Rev. Branford Clarke from Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty 1926 by Bishop Alma White published by the Pillar of Fire Church in Zarephath, NJ.

Beginning after the Civil War, members of the Protestant-led, Ku Klux Klan organization began engaging in arson, beatings, cross burning, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping against African Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities.

They were explicitly Christian terrorist in ideology, basing their beliefs on a "religious foundation" in Christianity.  The goals of the KKK included, from an early time on, an intent to, "reestablish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible," and believe that "Jesus was the first Klansman. Their cross-burnings were conducted not only to intimidate targets, but to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and the lighting ritual was steeped in Christian symbolism, including the saying of prayers and singing of Christian hymns.  Many modern Klan organizations, such as the Knights Party, USA, continue to focus on the Christian supremacist message, asserting that there is a "war" on to destroy "western Christian civilization.

During the twentieth century, members of extremist groups such as the Army of God began executing attacks against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States. A number of terrorist attacks were attributed to individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements, including the Lambs of Christ. A group called Concerned Christians were deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy sites in Jerusalem at the end of 1999, believing that their deaths would "lead them to heaven. The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita doctor George Tiller on May 31, 2009 was a belief that abortion is criminal and immoral, and that this belief went "hand in hand" with his religious beliefs.

Hutaree was a Christian militia group based in Adrian, Michigan. In 2010, after an FBI agent infiltrated the group, nine of its members were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of seditious conspiracy to use of improvised explosive devices, teaching the use of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.Terrorism scholar Aref M. Al-Khattar has listed The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, Defensive Action, The Freemen Community, and what Al-Khattar called "the Christian militia that supported Timothy McVeigh", as groups that "can be placed under the category of far-right-wing terrorism" that "has a religious (Christian) component. However, some[who?] claim that McVeigh himself was not a Christian, including McVeigh himself.

In a congressional hearing about radicalization in U.S. prisons, in 2005 Sheila Jackson Lee stated that investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America because they too might try to “bring down the country.

Motivation, ideology, and theology

Christian views on abortion have been cited by Christian individuals and groups that are responsible for threats, assault, murder, and bombings against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States and Canada.

Christian Identity is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology that asserts that North European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God's chosen people. It has been associated with groups such as the Aryan Nations, Aryan Republican Army, Army of God, Phineas Priesthood, and The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. It has been cited as an influence in a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2002 Soweto bombings.

'Christian terrorist' Coming to term?

As Norwegians prepare over the coming days to bury scores of the dead from terror attacks on a youth camp and the government's headquarters, an aggrieved nation vowed it wouldn't let its proudly open society also fall victim to the massacre.

The first funerals of the 77 killed in the attacks 10 days ago took place Friday—those of two Muslim teenagers from immigrant families who, in many ways, embodied the evolving face of Norway that an anti-immigrant extremist said he sought to assault with the attacks.

As a Muslim imam and a Lutheran minister led the casket of one of them, Bano Rashid, an 18-year-old Iraqi Kurd who had come to Norway with her family in 1996, mourners spoke of a passionate young woman who aspired to become a Norwegian parliamentarian one day. Earlier on the rainy day of the attacks, friends said, Ms. Rashid had lent her rubber boots to former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who had spoken just hours before at the Labor Party youth camp she and others were attending.

In his eulogy for Ms. Rashid, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere also lamented an irony that many in Norway have struggled to come to terms with since the tragedy:

"As refugees...you arrived in Norway, looking for protection and safety. And yet you have been hit by what is most absurd and most brutal right here in our home, in safe Norway," he said. "It is not understandable."

In the days since Norway's worst peacetime atrocity, political leaders, police and ordinary Norwegians have been re-examining the openness that for so long has marked this nation's society and its security policies.

During the first reports that someone had detonated a car bomb and then opened fire at a youth camp in Norway, many assumptions clicked into place.

"In all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra," Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote within hours on the Weekly Standard website.

The massacre was actually committed, police say, by a blond Norwegian. As Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto emerged, calling for violence to rid Europe of non-Christians and those he deemed traitors to Christian Europe, some seized on the religious aspect of his delusions.

Mark Juergensmeyer, editor of the book "Global Religions: An Introduction" and a sociology professor at UC Santa Barbara, wrote an essay likening Breivik to Timothy McVeigh, the American who killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil until 9/11.

McVeigh and Breivik were both "good-looking young Caucasians, self-enlisted soldiers in an imagined cosmic war to save Christendom, and both were Christian terrorists," Juergensmeyer wrote.

In a column for Salon.com, Alex Pareene said Breivik is not an American-style evangelical, but he listed other connections to Christianity. "All of this says 'Christian terrorist,' " Pareene wrote.

Such claims drew strong resistance. "Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder," Bill O'Reilly said on his Fox News show.

That makes sense to Joyce Dubensky, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. She said it also makes sense that "millions of Muslims say Osama bin Laden is not a Muslim, that no one who believes in the prophet Muhammad commits mass murder."

"We need to hear Bill O'Reilly, but we also need to hear and understand the voices of the overwhelming Muslim majority around the world who condemn those who are terrorists in the name of their faith," she said.

Arsalan Iftikhar, an international human rights lawyer and author of the upcoming book "Islamic Pacifism: Global Muslims in the Post-Osama Era," said the Norway attacks "proved that terrorism can be committed by a person of any race, nationality or religion.

Europe's Big Oil Sees Output Fall

LONDON - When Europe's major oil companies reported quarterly earnings last week, headlines across national capitals once again excoriated the petroleum giants for soaring profits in the face of consumers anger at high fuel prices.

Yet the profits couldn't mask a trend that continues to trouble Wall Street and corporate boardrooms: Nearly every major oil company reported year-on-year oil and gas output declines, often in the double-digits.

Big Oil is throwing huge resources at the problem with more open embrace of unconventional petroleum developments, high-risk exploration in frontier areas and corporate restructuring. But even if these strategies work in some cases, there is little doubt that anemic petroleum output signals a long-term challenge confronting the sector.
The particulars varied across the sector. BP PLC's (BP) 11% output drop was fueled in part by the continued hit from its reduced activity in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico after last year's disastrous spill. Italian giant Eni's (ENI) production fell 15% due to its disproportionate exposure to war-ravaged Libya. Spain's Repsol YPF SA (REP.MC), whose output fell 17%, was affected by both Libya and the U.S. Gulf, as well as by labor unrest in Argentina. Norway's Statoil ASA (STO) saw a16% output decline largely on production outages and maintenance in its home market in the North Sea.

Oil giants are more vulnerable to operational problems in part because of their declining dominance over key resources. Whereas in 1973, independent oil firms controlled three-quarters of the world's reserves, they hold as little as10% today, according to some estimates. That has forced oil majors to rely to a greater extent on costly unconventional plays such as shale gas, deepwater exploration, and Arctic exploration.
Investment in conventional assets accounted for 63% of the majors' total capital expenditure between 2001 and 2005, research by Wood Mackenzie showed, with this proportion set to fall to 40% between 2011 and 2015.

Most European major oil companies posted a surge in quarterly profits last week, but their results were overshadowed by a trend that continues to trouble Wall Street and corporate boardrooms: Nearly every major oil company reported year-to-year oil-and-gas output declines, often in the double-digits.

Big Oil is throwing huge resources at the problem with more open embrace of unconventional petroleum developments, high-risk exploration in frontier areas and corporate restructuring. But even if these strategies work in some cases, there is little doubt that anemic petroleum output signals a long-term challenge confronting the sector.

Consolidation offers another way forward, yet few expect large corporate mergers between integrated oil giants in light of antitrust concerns and today's high oil prices. More likely is a deal akin to Exxon's purchase of U.S. unconventional gas specialist XTO, a major factor in Exxon's standout 10% rise in production in the quarter. Wood Mackenzie's Simon Flowers predicts more such "infill acquisitions," but says "large-scale acquisition is not likely in the near term."

Another possibility is the flowering of deals between private oil giants and emerging state-controlled firms like Brazil's Petrobras, Russia's Rosneft (ROSN.RS) and China's CNPC. BP's failed share swap and Arctic exploration deal with Rosneft was an example and illustrates the lengths to which companies are prepared to go to gain access to their potentially lucrative reserves.

Wall Street will likely push harder for some sort of tangible action from Big Oil in the coming months. The sector trades at a significant discount to the oil price itself, a factor that could sharpen calls for share buybacks and more special dividends. The recent move by ConocoPhillips (COP) to hive off its downstream business lifted the Texas company's share price and spawned questions for the rest of the sector. But so far, most of Conoco's peers have dismissed the idea as impractical in light of the advantages of the conventional integrated model.

Norway terrorist & Europe growing right wing hate

Think of Norway and what do you imagine? Oil. Fjords. Pine trees. Above all, a sense of peace. A country that has unostentatiously done good with its wealth. Not now. Images of violence currently define Norway on television screens worldwide. More than 90 people have been killed in Norway in a bomb attack on the Prime Minister's Office in Oslo, followed by an assault on a Norwegian Labour Party summer camp for young people.
The clean streets of Oslo are covered in glass and debris. The glorious little island of Utoya is now forever branded with the horror of the mass slaughter. And for me, a personal shock. I have worked closely with the Norwegian Labour Party and the Prime Minister's staff since Jens Stoltenberg formed a government in 2005.


Norway will survive this. A crisis always reveals and this one has shown just how strong and eloquent a leader Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg actually is. Just as New York's former mayor Rudy Giuliani became the leader he always had the potential to be in his response to 9/11, so Stoltenberg has found a public voice and tone to match the gravity of events. His lines are pitch perfect: "We are a small country, but a very proud one. Nobody can bomb us to be quiet. Nobody can shoot us to be quiet. Nobody can ever scare us from being Norway."
Migration is a fact of human existence that has spread culture and civilisation, access to resources, knowledge and wealth, as human beings have moved from hostile region and environment to more habitable environment, where they have access to resources, security and comfort.


This was a key process that led to the evolution of nations and people. Migration therefore promotes development and advancement of civilisation, knowledge and socio-cultural interaction if properly managed. But since the emergence of the concept of defined national frontiers, there have been several measures and approaches taken by countries to secure their borders, protect themselves and their resources from outsiders, yet migration remains a potent force for the spread of civilisation, socio-cultural and economic development.


Equally worthy of mention is the fact that migration is an essential part of humanity as the phenomenon of people moving outside their national borders to other countries have provided a strong push for promotion of trade and development. With the end of the cold war, scholars and researchers believe that migration will be one of the hottest political issues of the next 15 years in Europe and America given the dwindling state of global economy.


Experience has shown that politicians and racial bigots often use migration as their most potent weapon to gain popularity by heaping the blame on their failures on migrants. The Tea Party in the US has become a rallying point for Americans promoting hate ideology and supremacist tendencies. The attacks on Nigerians and other Africans in South Africa is a case to mention here.


In Europe, there is a rising wave of ultra right political philosophy. The anti-migration sentiment, originally started as a fringe ideology of the right wing parties being relegated to the back ground.


Even though there is a general sense that globalisation has come to stay and that Europe, at least among the governing elites, share economic interests with the rest of the world, views from the likes of Jean Marie Le Pen, which were repugnant in the 1990s, have gradually become mainstream ideas in France, and other European countries.


The resurgence of nationalist feeling has been against migrant, notably Arab/Muslims as well as blacks. Multiculturalism is seen as an accommodationist ideology which should not have a footing in fortress Europe.


Akinyemi, who spent over 25 years in Austria, said the idea of fortress Europe as an exclusive European continent for white people is under threat from globalisation. “Today, they see globalisation as a concept that could lead to Europe being swapped by immigrants and especially Arab Muslims who have been seen as irrational and potential terrorists”, the university don said.


Apart from the economic crisis ravaging Europe, political and religious violence has become the identity of the political face of Islam. The proposed European jihad is to counter what is coming from the Muslim world. The end of the cold war has narrowed down ideological differences, but we now have what Samuel Huntington identified as the clash of civilization. Faith inspired terrorists espouse opposition to the Western culture and value system.


The Boko Haram sect, the Taliban in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the Al-Qaeda and many other fundamentalist religious groups view Judeo-Christian faith as a legitimate target for Islamic jihad. They have seen the superpowers as responsible for all the world’s wrongs and suggested that it was the obligation of all Muslims to mobilize to remove the superpowers from the global arena. All these redefined concept of martyrdom provided the basic justification of suicide on religious grounds. In conclusion, Breivik may be pointing to a clash of civilization.

Norway terror attack exposes deeper anger over immigration

Norwegian police say a suspicious suitcase found on a bus at the central station in the capital, Oslo, poses no danger.
Railway officials said parts of the station were evacuated Wednesday after the abandoned bag was discovered in an area where buses depart for the airport.
Norway is on high alert after a bombing and massacre last week that killed 76 people.
Police on Tuesday began releasing some of the names of those killed — three who were killed in the bomb blast in Oslo and one in the shooting rampage at an island youth camp.
The defense lawyer for the Norwegian man who confessed to the attacks, Anders Behring Breivik, says the case suggests his client is insane.
At a news conference in Oslo Tuesday, defense attorney Geir Lippestad told reporters it was too early to say if Breivik would plead insanity. He said Breivik is not aware of the death toll nor of the public response to the massacre.
While Breivik has admitted responsibility for the attacks, he has pleaded not guilty to the terrorism charges, claiming he acted to save Europe from what he says is Muslim colonization.
Police Tuesday detonated a cache of explosives found at a farm Breivik rented about 160 kilometers north of Oslo. Breivik reportedly used the farm as a cover for ordering the six tons of fertilizer he used to make his bomb.


A country of less than 5 million people, Norway has seen its once homogeneous population change in recent years with new arrivals from Africa and the Middle East. This transformation, in part, drove Anders Behring Breivik, charged with Friday's car bombing and shooting spree that killed at least 76 people in the span of a few hours.


Now, even as this country still grieves for its victims, many say how Norway responds to the attacks could define immigration policy in the future.


Some of his ideas are more commonplace than we’d like them to be,” says Rune Berglund Steen, communication manager for the Norwegian Center Against Racism. "This skepticism of Muslims has become a fairly central topic in Norwegian politics.”


Norway’s second-largest political party in parliament, the Progress Party, has been accused of backing xenophobic positions and Breivik was on the party’s member registry until 2006. The party quickly denounced the attacks and Breivik’s beliefs.


Mr. Steen says most Norwegians have a positive view toward immigrants. For example, he said a recent poll found that about 8 out of 10 Norwegians found it favorable if a child attends a school with mixed ethnicities.


But for Breivik and his ilk, Muslim newcomers here represent a "takeover."


“The problem can only be solved if we completely remove those who follow Islam. In order to do this all Muslims must ‘submit’ and convert to Christianity,” he wrote in his manifesto. “If they refuse to do this voluntarily prior to Jan. 1, 2020, they will be removed from European soil and deported back to the Islamic world.”


Most Norwegians, however, reject Breivik’s anti-Islamic views, preferring to see themselves as a tolerant, peaceful people and Breivik as a backwards extremist.


“It’s the fact that he attacked our multiculturalism,” says Alexander Roine, waiting outside the courthouse where Breivik appeared Monday.


Mr. Roine, an Oslo native whose father came from Tunisia, says Norway is rightly famous for its peaceful, tolerant attitude but conceded older generations are still adjusting to the country’s brisk demographic shift.


“We would think a guy with these views would be like 50 or 60 years old,” he says of Breivik. “This guy was born in a Norway that was already multicultural. He attacked everything this country stands for to the last detail.”


Norway has experienced a steady rise in immigration, like many European countries, with the number of its immigrants doubling since 1995.
Most came for the robust economy, political stability and generous welfare state, settling in dense pockets in Norway’s largest cities. It’s estimated that 11 percent of Norwegians are immigrants or the children of immigrants and about 2 percent of the population practices Islam.