Extremist right-wing terrorism is escalating in Norway
Saturday 22/February/2020 - 07:06 PM
Shaima Hafezy
Prosecutors accuse a 22-year-old Norwegian of being charged with terrorism after he opened fire on a mosque near Oslo, indicating an escalation of the far-right crisis in the city.
The Norwegian authorities arrested the young Philip Manshaus after he opened fire on the Al-Nour Mosque in the wealthy Borum suburb of Oslo on August 10, 2019, before a 65-year-old man overpowered him, and the police found his sister's dead body.
The police had earlier said they believed the motive for the killing was to be a racist, saying he had killed her because she was of Asian descent.
The charge sheet filed with the court included February 17, 2020, two charges, one of which killed his half-sister, and the other the charge of terrorism of trying to kill as many Muslims as possible, and the trial is expected to begin on May 7.
Manshaus previously confessed to the acts but rejected charges of murder and terrorism, claiming that he was "a form of self-defense", and on September 9, at a court hearing to extend his detention, Manhouse raised his arm in a Nazi salute to the media.
Norwegian media said that Manshaus was inspired by the shooting in March 2019 in New Zealand where an armed man targeted two mosques, killing 51 people, and in August 2019 in El Paso, Texas, where he targeted a Hispanic attacker and left at least 22 dead.
The Norwegian Internal Security Agency (PST) said it had "vague" information about Manshaus a year before the August shooting, but that was not enough to work because they had no information on any "concrete plans" of the attack.
Norway's Internal Security Agency warns of the possibility of a terrorist attack by right-wing extremists this year, depending on monitoring operations against Muslims last year.
The agency said that its extensive assessment of the warnings stems from the fact that many Norwegian right-wing extremists have recently expressed support for the perpetrators of the attacks in New Zealand and the United States and the failed attack in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.
The agency stated that "the meeting places of Muslims, non-Western immigrants, political parties or persons, Jews, and LGBT communities were symbolic targets.
The extremist right wing in Norway is escalating, despite the improvement at the level of economic performance, until it came to power, as a hard right-wing government embarks on immigration and immigrants, led by the People's Progress Party.
Party members believe that the immigrants are the most representative of unemployment and crime in the country, which requires them to prevent the reception of any new immigrants to the country and put the current ones under surveillance.