(Oslo) Despite calls from the police not to march, several thousand people spontaneously gathered Monday evening in Oslo to celebrate LGBT pride, two days after the fatal shooting near a gay bar in the Norwegian capital.
Posted yesterday at 3:38 p.m.
Earlier in the day, the alleged perpetrator of the fatal shooting, described by police as an Islamist with fragile mental health, was remanded in custody for four weeks.
The Pride march, which was to be held on Saturday afternoon in Oslo, had been postponed indefinitely after the attack which left two dead and 21 injured in the night from Friday to Saturday.
Organizers also canceled all Oslo Pride-related events, on the recommendation of the police.
Despite this call renewed Monday with the support of the organizers, several thousand people gathered Monday evening on the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, in a wave of rainbow flags.
“You can’t cancel us” or “Sexual freedom”, said signs held by the demonstrators, determined not to give up.
NTB PHOTO, VIA REUTERS
People holding rainbow flags stand in Radhusplassen after the recent deadly shooting at a gay bar in Oslo.
On Monday, the police and internal intelligence publicly expressed concern about the risk of new attacks, after having already raised their attack alert to the maximum level this weekend.
“We fear that there is a new act. We have seen cases of this in the past in other countries, and it is not uncommon for some to be inspired by it,” PST interior intelligence chief Roger Berg told public television NRK.
Placed in pre-trial detention for four weeks, the alleged perpetrator of the shooting, now officially identified as Zaniar Matapour, 43, will also not be able to have any contact (visit, mail, etc.) with the outside world until July 25, decided the Oslo court.
This Norwegian of Iranian origin is suspected of having killed two men aged 54 and 60 and injured 21 others by opening fire near a gay bar, the London Pub, in the heart of downtown Oslo. , in full festivities related to the LGBT Pride march.
PHOTO BEATE OMA DAHLE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, Norwegian Minister for International Development, lays flowers at the memorial site where two people were shot.
Suspect silenced
The Norwegian police are still trying to determine the motives for this attack.
Suspected of “terrorist act”, homicide and attempted homicide, Zaniar Matapour refuses at this stage to be heard for fear, according to his lawyer, that the video recordings of his interrogations will be manipulated by the investigators.
He must undergo a preliminary examination by experts to assess his mental health and therefore his criminal responsibility.
On the radar of the PST since 2015 because suspected of radicalization, he belongs, according to the police, to “an extremist Islamist network”.
The police say they are working on several theories: the attack motivated by ideology, the hate crime against the homosexual community, the gesture of an unbalanced person, even a combination of several factors.
The PST claims not to have detected “violent intentions” when the services had an interview with him last month.
The way the police and the PST handled the episode will be assessed, announced the Minister of Justice, Emilie Enger Mehl.
Arrived in Norway in his childhood, Zaniar Matapour, today a father living on social benefits according to the media, has been implicated and convicted on several occasions for relatively minor acts in the past.