AUF wants a new commission from July 22 – NRK Norway – Summary of news from different parts of the country

– We have not reached any political agreement with what happened on July 22. There is a lack of agreement with values, conspiracy theories and political hatred behind the terror attack, AUF leader Astrid Hoem tells NRK.

We found her aboard the MS ‘Thorbjørn’, on the first voyage to Utøya after the ice is gone.

It was this ship that brought the terrorist ashore on the dark day in July 2011. On the day that 69 lives were taken, 33 were seriously injured and hundreds of young people and their families suffered trauma for the rest of their lives.

– We have reached an agreement with the preparedness for emergencies and the lack of barriers, and we have taken the legal agreement. But we have not discussed the ideology and how these attitudes arise, says the AUF leader.

New commission

32 of those killed in Utøya were not yet 18 years old. Astrid Hoem herself was 16 years old and in her second summer camp for AUF.

She survived the massacre, but believes that the Labor Party and AUF have had contact anxiety on July 22. Now he will put it aside by establishing a new government-appointed commission. A commission that analyzes matters completely different from those that the Gjørv Commission did at the time.

– Ten years after July 22, we see that the extreme right-wing extremist forces are more organized, and we have seen a new terrorist attack, against the Bærum mosque. These forces are alive, and to a large extent we are talking about white men growing up in our communities and living in our neighborhoods, who are radicalized, says Hoem and continues:

– The debate has moved. What was not good to say in 2011 is suddenly more good to say in today’s public speech. Fewer say when it goes too far.

Call the prime minister

The AUF loses a clearer voice from across the political spectrum, but especially from the Conservatives and Prime Minister Erna Solberg..

– If only the Labor Party and the AUF speak about the ideology and ideas behind July 22, I am afraid that we will not get a proper deal.

– I hope we have a prime minister who speaks, very clearly, when people feed hatred. And who not only says “I would not use exactly those words”, but who says that this is not correct, we distance ourselves from that.

– I miss that throughout society it is said more clearly who was an attack and what values ​​it was an attack. I miss a conservative who is even more clearly involved in conciliation with extremist forces, the AUF leader continues.

Hoem believes that a new commission on July 22 must provide answers to a number of difficult and fundamental questions. Perhaps most important: Where did society fail before terror struck?

– How can you really grow up in Norway and have such radical attitudes that you think you have the right to kill children? What does not work in the classroom, in child welfare or in leisure activities, when someone ends up outside the community? Is this radicalization happening online?

Open to proposal

Prime Minister Erna Solberg tells NRK that the government has initiated various measures against right-wing extremism. At the same time, he emphasizes that “this is a fight that never ends.”

– Therefore, I am open to evaluating all proposals that can combat right-wing extremism, and I invite the AUF to finalize its proposal, she says.

Solberg says he understands that AUF believes the deal after July 22 has become flawed.

– Stoltenberg’s line of treating the terrorist attack as an attack on the entire nation, included everyone in the pain. But I can understand that, in hindsight, the agreement with the terrorist’s political ideas is believed to be incomplete, he says.

The Prime Minister notes that radicalization contacts have been established in all police districts and that a separate group has been established to strengthen the preventive work of the police.

At the same time, he points out that the main concern of the PST in this context is a current called “accelerationism”, and that it will accelerate what they believe is an inevitable conflict between ethnic groups.

– Many accelerationists do not belong to organized groups, but radicalize online and often radicalize quickly. Therefore, the government will strengthen PST’s legal basis for tracking open source information, Solberg says.

Støre support

Labor leader Jonas Gahr Støre says the AUF initiative is important, but will not immediately declare that a new commission is the way forward.

– I want to congratulate the AUF for their tireless work so that we can understand and learn from the terror of July 22. If it is a commission that is the best to get the knowledge and debate that we need, or if there are other measures that are correct, we must look, but obviously we must do more so that we do not experience the right thing. to terrorism extremism again, he says.

Støre says he agrees that more needs to be learned about how right-wing extremism can be prevented.

– The Gjørv Commission did not address the issues related to the motive of the perpetrator and the society’s measures against radicalization. It was an understandable delineation then, but it characterized the subsequent public debate, which was mainly about police helicopters, emergency centers and resources that were not found, he says.

Critical

Bård Larsen, a historian and employee of the liberal think tank Civita, is critical of parts of the agreement called for by the AUF and also championed by Labor leader Jonas Gahr Støre.

He thinks it is very poorly formulated specifically and asks if the Labor Party and the AUF really want to discuss right-wing populism rather than right-wing extremism.

– Perhaps the Labor Party and the AUF will never get the justice they want. The terror that struck them was so inhuman that it is almost impossible to have an open and honest debate, Larsen wrote in a column in Vårt Land recently.

The article was a response to a post Støre wrote in the same newspaper, in which the Labor leader claimed that over time it has become more important to talk about the motives behind the July 22 attack.

– You may be right on this, but Støre and many others who write about this are too reluctant to specify. What should happen? Who are the target audience, specifically, and why not be clearer? And if we are missing a debate, why not take the debate instead of writing the articles we need to start the debate? Larsen asks in the mail.

Earring

Larsen tells NRK that he is positive, but hesitant about proposing a new commission on July 22.

– It is important to do deep dives in the extreme right. It is quite clear that this is a growing problem. But this must happen in a research-based way and not as part of an ideological agenda, he says.

Larsen largely agrees with Hoem at AUF that Erna Solberg and conservatives have partially deviated from public debate in this area.

– I think there are reasons to say that Solberg and the government could have been more critical and marked a clearer distance with the populist wing in Frp, but July 22 is not a natural or fair entry into such an agreement, he says.