We mourn those we lost. And we reaffirm our commitment to continue fighting for the democratic, open and human society they believed in.
PES President Sergei Stanishev said:
“We remember the victims of this attack. We remember them for the people they were and the values they championed. Our promise is to carry on their work, to stand together and continue building a society founded on democracy, openness, and humanity.
“Ten years ago Norway was targeted by a cowardly attack, fuelled by hate of multiculturalism and freedom. It was an attack on social democracy, in government and its youth movement. Hate will never silence us. Violence will never silence us. We must stamp out the far-right extremism that pollutes our societies.
“As then prime minister Jens Stoltenberg and the AUF have said many times, if one man can show so much hate, think how much love we can show, standing together. This is what we will do, to honour those we lost and to make real the values they held.”
10 years on from the attacks, Nimrah Ramzan and Astrid Willa Eide Home from the Workers’ Youth League (AUF) – the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party – told PES what the anniversary of the attacks means for them, the AUF and for Norway.
Today, PES Deputy Secretary General Giacomo Filibeck will take part in a Partido Democrático event at the party’s headquarters in Rome to commemorate the victims and to send a clear message that social democrats stand against right-wing extremism and xenophobia.
On 22 July 2011, a government building in Oslo housing the Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Justice and the Police was bombed, killing eight and injuring 209. The attacker then travelled to the island of Utøya, where the AUF was holding a summer camp. He killed 69 people, mostly teenagers, with a further 110 people injured. It was the deadliest attack on Norway since World War II.
