Haakon Mosvold Larsen / NTB Scanpix via Reuters
Marie Naess and Aashild Nestdgaard Roe (R), both 16, tie roses onto railings outside a courthouse where admitted mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is standing trial on Tuesday.
OSLO, April 25 (Reuters) - Norwegians protesting against mass killer Anders Behring Breivik will take to the streets of Oslo on Thursday to sing a children’s songs that they're hoping he will just hate.
They plan to sing arm-in-arm a few blocks from the courthouse where Breivik is on trial for the killings of 77 people in a gun and bomb rampage last year.
"I grew up with this song and have sung it to my child," said Lill Hjoennevaag, one of the organizers of the demonstration.
"Everybody I know feels strongly about this song and we need to take it back," she told public broadcaster NRK.
Lillebjoern Nilsen's "Children of the Rainbow," a Norwegian rendition of American folk singer Pete Seeger's 1971 "My Rainbow Race," is a popular song in Norway.
"Breivik has used it as an example of brainwashing, but it is rather an example of the opposite," said Christine Bar, another organizer, who launched the event on Facebook.
"We think it represents diversity, and it stands for the community we have chosen to live in, and which Breivik and similar people want to tear down," she added.
Breivik, set off a car bomb in the capital Oslo, killing eight people, then gunned down 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a youth summer camp organized by the ruling Labor Party on July 22.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Breivik has shown no remorse and made no admission of guilt. ITN's Paul Davies reports.
Also on Wednesday, the confessed mass killer slammed a psychiatric report that declared him insane as based on "evil fabrications" meant to portray him as irrational and unintelligent.
"It is not me who is described in that report," the right-wing extremist, who admitted killing 77 people in bomb and shooting attacks on July 22, said in court.
A second psychiatric examination found Breivik sane. The five-judge panel trying Breivik on terror charges for the attacks will consider both reports.
Breivik admits to the bombing of Oslo's government district and subsequent shooting massacre at the Labor Party youth camp, claiming the attacks were "necessary" and that the victims had betrayed Norway by embracing immigration.
Images: Norway mourns after massacre
If found guilty, Breivik would face 21 years in prison, though he can be held longer if deemed a danger to society. If declared insane, he would be committed to compulsory psychiatric care.
After listening to testimony describing the horrific injuries of the bombing victims, Breivik showed no remorse, saying if anyone should apologize it was the governing Labor Party.
He said he had hoped they would change policy on immigration after his attacks.
"But instead they continue in the same direction, so the grounds for struggle are unfortunately even more relevant now than before July 22," Breivik said.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Oslo to sing a children's song calling for peace, as a protest against mass killer Anders Behring Breivik. Msnbc.com’s Dara Brown reports.
Breivik: Voices in my head said, 'Don't do this'
Norwegian on trial in mass-slayings gives horrific account of attacks
By Valeria Criscione
Correspondent
Christian Science Monitor
Defendant Anders Behring Breivik gave a detailed his attack on a children's camp in Norway.
OSLO — Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik
gave his most gruesome evidence yet Friday during testimony in the
trial of the July 2011 terror attacks that left 77 people dead.
After warning people to leave the courtroom because his testimony
might distress them, Breivik explained in his fourth day of
cross-examination how he arrived on the island of Utøya on July 22 and
calmly and methodically executed Labor party youth members, many who
stood paralyzed in fear as he shot them with a Glock pistol and Ruger semi-automatic rifle."I thought 'It's now or never,'" said a red-faced but composed Breivik, referring to his thoughts before taking his first victim. "A hundred voices in my head said, 'Don’t do this.'"
He said his intention was to kill not just the 69 who did die on the island that day, mostly from shooting, but all of the camp attendees by frightening them into fleeing into the water to drown. He said he didn’t understand why some "just stood there" and tried to scare them into attempting to swim away by shouting a "psychological cry" twice in the campsite area: "You shall die today, Marxists."
SEE ALSO – Chronicle of a trial foretold: Breivik is following his manifesto's script
He said he used a cellphone he found on the ground to call the police during the attack to surrender because he felt he had "achieved his objective," although he continued shooting after the call.
Breivik’s cold-blooded recount has been the most emotionally provocative moment so far in the trial for Norway’s worst peacetime atrocity. The Norwegian confessed to both the car bomb attack on government headquarters, which killed eight, and the shooting rampage at Utøya that took 69 lives, mostly teenagers. Victims' families in court Friday cried and held on to each other as they listened in disbelief.
Breivik revealed during cross-examination earlier today that he almost called off his plans for the attacks. He said he lost faith in democracy after the Norwegian media censored their coverage of the Muslim riots in Sweden and France that year, just a few weeks ahead of Norway's general elections in September 2009.
He said he felt that the "Marxist" media feared that if they covered the events, the far-right Progress Party — an anti-immigration party of which he was a member — would have gained more votes, upending the Labor-led coalition government. Breivik has blamed his attacks on the Labor party for promoting multiculturalism and the "ethnic cleansing" of indigenous Norwegian with its immigration policies, which have allowed many Muslim immigrants into the country.
"If the media had given the Progress Party a fair chance without demonizing them before an election, then I wouldn’t have carried out the attacks," Breivik told defense attorney Vibeke Hein Baera.
He added that he drove to Utøya after the bomb attack in Oslo only because he heard on Norwegian P4 radio that only one person was confirmed dead and the government’s main building had not collapsed as planned. His inspiration for that type of car bomb attack was taken from the Oklahoma City and 1993 World Trade Center bombings, he said.
"I knew the whole time that if the action has been 100 percent successful, that the building had collapsed and all employees had died, the action at Utøya would not have been necessary," he said. "Then I would have driven straight to Grønland (police station) and surrendered."
The defense spent the bulk of the morning establishing the sources for Breivik's radicalization and how he had gained the knowledge to carry out such an attack. Breivik said he had found most of his information on the Internet, including Arabic literature on al-Qaida, whose methods and media effect he had studied since 2006.
"I wanted to make a version of al-Qaida for European Christians and nationalists," Breivik told Geir Lippestad, his defense attorney, during cross-examination.
The comments follows yesterday’s shocking revelation that Breivik had originally planned to decapitate Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway’s former Labor prime minister, at Utøya and film the event. He also said he sought to kill all on the island that day by using the water as a weapon of "mass destruction" by forcing them to swim and drown. Neither plan succeeded.
He also detailed a list of other potential targets for his original plan to use three car bombs, one at the government headquarters, which he did carry out, and two more at the Norwegian Royal Castle and Labor party headquarters.
This article, "Norway killer Breivik: Voices in my head told me 'Don't do this'" first appeared on CSMonitor.com
No comments:
Post a Comment