Norway's prime minister says Oslo shootings won’t stop the fight against hate

Norway's prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre has said Saturday's fatal shootings at a gay bar in Oslo will not stop the fight against “discrimination, prejudice and hate”.

Jonas Gahr Støre joined government ministers, church leaders and Crown Princess Mette-Marit at a memorial service for victims of the attack at Oslo Cathedral, which was decorated with rainbow flags.

In an address at the memorial, Jonas Gahr Støre explained how despite the cancellation of planned Pride events, thousands of people had spontaneously paraded through the streets of Oslo with rainbow flags and laid flowers at the scene of the attack: “During the day, the city was full of people who wanted to speak out, about sorrow and anger, but also about support and solidarity and the will to continue on fighting, for the right of every individual to live a free life, a safe life,”. “These misdeeds remind us of this. This fight is not over. It is not safe from dangers. But we are going to win it, together. The shooting put an end to the Pride march, but it has not put an end to the fight to end discrimination, prejudice and hate.”

Olav Fykse Tveit, the head of the Norwegian Protestant church, said that despite long-term opposition to equal rights for same-sex couples, the church had learned. “Diversity is a gift, a richness, and many gay people have a capacity for love that we do not,” he said. “Bullets cannot kill love.”

The shootings took place inside and outside the London Pub, a bar in Oslo’s nightlife district popular with the LGBTQ+ community, shortly after 1am on Saturday morning. Two men died, 21 people were injured, including 10 seriously. On Saturday, Norway's threat level was raised from moderate to extraordinary by the PST, Norway’s Security Service.

On Sunday, police questioned the suspect, a 42-year-old Norwegian-Iranian named by the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK and multiple other local media outlets as Zaniar Matapour for the second time. An attempt to question the suspect on Saturday ended early, according to the suspect's lawyer John Christian Elden, after the suspect refused to have the interview recorded “because he thought the police would manipulate it”.

Matapour is accused of murder, attempted murder and terrorism. The suspect has been described as a radicalised Islamist with a record of violence and threats and a history of mental illness. The PST has called the attack “an act of extreme Islamist terror”. They also said the suspect was a member of an Islamist network in Norway and had been known the to the agency since 2015. He will be undergoing extensive psychiatric evaluation over the next few days. It has been reported by NRK that Matapour had been in contact with a known Islamic extremist living in Norway, Arfan Bhatti, who posted a photo of a burning rainbow flag and a call for gay people to be killed on social media earlier this month.

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