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Thursday, July 28, 2011

Norway attacks boost political parties' membership

Last week's Oslo terrorist attacks are raising delicate questions of immigration and integration here after the admitted attacker cited anti-Muslim views as motivating the assaults.

A country of less than 5 million people, Norway has seen its once homogeneous population change in recent years with new arrivals from Africa and the Middle East. This transformation, in part, drove Anders Behring Breivik, charged with Friday's car bombing and shooting spree that killed at least 76 people in the span of a few hours.

Now, even as this country still grieves for its victims, many say how Norway responds to the attacks could define immigration policy in the future.

Progress Party has fairly mainstream anti-immigrant views. It proposed this year that immigrants should receive lower welfare payments than Norwegian citizens.

However, a leaflet used in the 2005 election featured a gun and the caption "...the perpetrator was of foreign origin."

"We have never expressed such a thing that Muslims are taking over the country, or anything else like that, so I don't think that we have anything to be ashamed of or change when it comes to politics," Keshvare said.

"Problems surrounding this issue haven't changed because of this tragic event," he added.

Labour's Hansen said he hoped rhetoric would be toned down.

"One of the things I hope that we will draw as a lesson from this is that we have to talk about immigration, integration, Muslims and so on in another language .... We have to change language to one more in line with reality," he said.

Norway has lower levels of immigration than most other Western countries.

For Tunisian-born Norwegian Izzeddine al-Saweih, 57, change will not come soon enough.

"There has to be a debate on the right principles, an open debate, and Muslims must take part," he shouted at an outdoor gathering of Labor Party politicians in Oslo Thursday.

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