Terrorist attack in Norway 2011

15 years since Utøya: “The worry is a bit in the spine”

On Wednesday, it will be 15 years since the terrorist attack on Utøya, which will be commemorated on site by members of both the Norwegian AUF and the Swedish SSU.

Union Secretary Lotta Wiechel tells P3 Nyheter that she feels a responsibility to remember even though she was not there herself in 2011.

“This worry is a bit in the spine. A habit of always keeping an eye on everyone who is there,” she says.

During the attack on Utøya and in central Oslo, terrorist Anders Behring Breivik killed a total of 77 people. 

Stoltenberg: "No coincidence - an attack on social democracy"

Today marks 15 years since the terrorist attack on Utøya and Jens Stoltenberg is going through his personal notes from the day with NRK. The then Prime Minister - today Minister of Finance - says he is keen to continue talking about what happened.

- July 22 is not a random attack but a conscious political decision to kill people with whom you politically disagree. It is an attack on AUF and on social democracy, says Stoltenberg.

Among the notes, he reacts, among other things, to the early reports of a few deaths.

- Seeing those numbers written down, which later turned out to be completely wrong. It is a reminder of how big this tragedy was, says Stoltenberg. 

Norwegian police see an increase in tributes to Breivik

15 years have passed since Utøya and terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is increasingly portrayed as a hero on social media, according to the Norwegian Security Police PST.

– In recent years, there has been an increase in people who pay tribute to or look up to Breivik, says Caroline Iwarsson from the counter-terrorism department to SR Ekot.

Above all, PST sees that it is young men who are attracted to right-wing extremism.

– Open channels like Tiktok function as a highway for radicalization, says Iwarsson.