Erstellt am: 22. 7. 2013 - 14:05 Uhr

In the shadow of the Breivik massacre

Reality Check: young survivors of the Utoya shooting run for parliament; EU designates Hezbollah's armed wing as a terrorist group.

Breivik shooting survivors run for parliament

On 22nd July two years ago, our news programmes were filled with live reports from Norway, as the horror of the attacks perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik unfolded. In all he killed 77 people: eight people died in a car bomb attack in the government quarter in Oslo, and 69 others were killed in a shooting spree at camp on Utoya island for the AUF youth wing of the Labour Party. Most of the victims in the shooting spree were teenagers.

EPA/JOERG CARSTENSEN

Candles and flowers laid on the shoreline opposite to Utoya Island, Norway, in July 2011.

As Breivik was stalking and shooting on the island for nearly an hour, terrified youngsters hid where they could. Some of them communicated with their parents by SMS, sending messages like „Mummy, tell the police that they must be quick. People are dying here!”

Breivik was arrested on that day on the island. A picture later emerged of the killer as a Christian fundamentalist with a deep hatred of multiculturalism, of the left and of Muslims, who had written disparagingly of prominent Norwegian politicians. In the aftermath of the tragedy, many Norwegians gathered at a memorial to insist that the country’s “open” society would not be compromised by the attacks.

Today, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg marked the anniversary by calling for a continued fight against all forms of extremism, saying said society has to stand up against "populist right-wing parties" that are on the rise in Europe, and extremist Islamists who continue to send out threats.

This September, Norway is holding parliamentary elections in which 35 of the candidates are survivors of the attack on Utoya. One of them, Vegard Groeslie Wennesland, says "Someone tried to kill me for what I believed in. So I am going to fight for it,” The number of young candidates is not unusual for Norway, which has a long tradition of involving young people early on in politics, but this is the first general election since the attacks.

We hear more from Marie Melgård, a journalist from the newspaper Aftenposten:

The EU & Hezbollah

The European Union has placed the military wing of Lebanese party Hezbollah on its terror list in a major change of its policy toward the region. The 28 foreign ministers reached the decision unanimously at their monthly meeting. There have been growing concerns over the Hezbollah’s activities in Europe recently, with suspicions the group was behind a bus bombing in Bulgaria last year which killed five Israelis and their driver.

Chris Cummins asks Rosemary Hollis, Professor of Middle East Policy Studies and Director of the Olive Tree Programme at City University in London for her reaction to the EU’s move: