Defending Breivik: European Politicians in Hot Water for Norway Comments
Two Italian, one french politician in hot water after Norway terror comments.
July 27, 2011 — -- At least three European politicians, including one former minister to Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, have come under fire for defending the extremist, anti-immigration views of Anders Breivik that inspired him to allegedly murder more than 70 people in Norway Friday.
Francesco Speroni, who was the Minister of Institutional Reform under Berlusconi in the mid-1990s and current leading member of Italy's Northern League, said Tuesday on an Italian radio show, "If [Breivik's] ideas are that we are going towards Eurabia [Islamized Europe] and those sorts of things, that western Christian civilization needs to be defended, yes, I'm in agreement."
Speroni said he condemned the attack itself but was coming to the defense of Mario Borghezio, a fellow member of the Northern League and member of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, who previously said some of Breivik's ideas were "great."
"Some of the ideas [Breivik] expressed are good, barring the violence. Some of them are great," Borghezio said also in a radio interview, according to the BBC and The Guardian. "Christians ought not to be animals to be sacrificed. We have to defend them."
Hours before Breivik allegedly began his attack Friday, he posted a 1,500-page manifesto and Youtube video online in which he not only described his meticulous and painstaking preparations for the attack, but an academic-styled presentation against what he called cultural Marxism and mutliculturalism.
"You cannot defeat Islamisation or halt/reverse the Islamic colonization of Western Europe without first removing the political doctrines manifested through multiculturalism/cultural Marxism," the manifesto reads. "Time is of the essence. We have ony a few decades to consolidate a sufficient level of resistance before our major cities are completely demographically overwhelmed by Muslims."
Breivik apparently finished his manifesto just hours before allegedly launching a bombing attack in Oslo that killed 8 before an assault on a liberal party's youth camp that claimed another 68 lives.
READ: 'They Just Fell, Lifeless,' Norway Shooting Survivor Says
Hours after Borghezio's comments, a leading member of the Northern League, Roberto Calderoli, reportedly released a statement apologizing for Borghezio's "rants" and several other Italian politicians called for Borghezio's resignation.
A member of France's right-wing National Front party has already been suspended for writing a blog post defending Breivik and calling him an "icon," Britain's The Telegraph reported.
"The reason for the Norway terror attacks: fighting the Muslim invasion, that's what people don't want you to know," read a post signed by Jacques Coutela. Coutela called Breivik, "the main defender of the West."
Coutela's post was reportedly removed from the web after a complaint by the French Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples. After the post was removed, Coutela told Agence France-Presse he was just passing along someone else's words and said he denounced terrorism.
In the wake of the attack several fringe right-wing group's have distanced themselves from Breivik's horrific attack. In his manifesto, Breivik said he communicated closely with Britain's English Defence League, a group that characterizes itself as defenders against "a truly Global jihad." But the EDL said in a pair of statements after the attack it is a "peaceful and patriotic" organization and their group has never had any official contact with Breivik.
"No form of terrorism can ever be justified and the taking of innocent lives can never be justified," the EDL said.
Several posters on the white nationalist website Stormfront quickly blasted Breivik for the attack, calling him "scum" and the website administrators posted a warning to members that it would delete any postings from those "cheering this slaughter."
"We do not own this guy Anders [Breivik] and he did not act out of WN [white nationalist] motives," Stormfront's editor and chief of staff said. "Even in a state of war one does not do such things as mow down a bunch of kids, no matter Leftist kids or Rightist kids or [gay] kids or what have you. It is an atrocity."