In Norway, tolerance tested

OSLO, Norway — Norway’s commitment to face xenophobia with tolerance on the first anniversary of deadly bomb and gun attacks is being put to the test by hostile reactions to an influx of Gypsies from eastern Europe.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he has been disturbed by the tone of the debate over the small camps of makeshift huts set up by Gypsies in Oslo and other Norwegian cities.

After neighbors complained of unsanitary conditions, noise and illegal construction, antiimmigration politicians called for the Gypsies to be rounded up and bused out of Norway. The debate has raged online.

“Some of what we have seen is frightening,” Stoltenberg told Norwegian broadcaster TV2 last week. “Nobody shall be judged because they belong to a certain ethnic group.”

The anti-Gypsy sentiment has been no worse than elsewhere in Europe — in fact many of the Gypsies say they are treated better in Norway than in their home countries, including Romania and Bulgaria.

But the discussion comes at an uncomfortable time for Norway as it prepares to honor the 77 victims of the country’s worst peacetime massacre in memorial services across the country today.

Confessed killer Anders Behring Breivik, facing sentencing next month, has said his July 22, 2011, bombing of a government high-rise and shooting rampage at a leftist party’s youth camp were the opening shots in a war against multiculturalism.

Virtually all of Norway condemned the attacks — even farright groups — and Stoltenberg moved the nation with his call for more openness, democracy and inclusiveness in response to the tragedy.

The debate over immigration, more civil in Norway than in many parts of Europe, was muted for months. But a harsher tone returned as authorities received complaints over the Gypsy camps.

“Enough is enough. Arrange a bus, send them out,” Siv Jensen, the leader of the anti-immigration Progress Party, told public broadcaster NRK.

While not a European Union member, Norway is a close partner of the 27-nation bloc and allows citizens of EU nations including Romania and Bulgaria to enter freely and stay for up to three months without registering with authorities.

Since the government doesn’t keep count of EU residents entering the country, there are no official numbers on how many Gypsies have arrived. But rights activists say they have noticed an increase in Gypsies going to Norway, which is largely unaffected by Europe’s financial crisis because of its vast resources of offshore oil and gas.

At a camp of about 100 people hidden in a forest on public land on the outskirts of Oslo, Cristian Florian Tudescu, a 31-year-old from Romania, said he had lived in Turkey and Greece for years before going to Norway.

In Oslo, he said, he earns about $30 on a good day collecting and returning bottles for deposit. He also earns money selling a magazine set up by a nonprofit organization that supports Gypsies in Norway.

“It’s king here,” Tudescu said in broken English, adding that Norwegian people had been good to him, though he recalled isolated incidents of being spat on and called a thief.

To address concerns that the Gypsies may try to exploit Norway’s generous welfare system, the Ministry of Labor called a news conference explaining that foreigners in Norway would only qualify for social benefits if they have full-time jobs.

“Begging by law is not illegal, but that does not mean it is considered to be a job,” deputy Labor Minister Gina Lund said. She said the Gypsies, like any other European visitors, “will have to provide for themselves while being in Norway.”

Eskil Pedersen, the head of the Labor Party youth organization that was attacked by Breivik and a survivor of the summer-camp massacre on Utoya island, told Norwegian news agency NTB that the negative comments about Gypsies had made him sick to his stomach.

But he added that the counter-reaction by many Norwegians speaking out against anti-Gypsy rhetoric shows that the spirit of inclusiveness after last year’s attacks is alive and well.

“There has been a lot of commitment in social media calling for human rights and tolerance,” he said. “That commitment wasn’t as strong before in similar debates.”

Anniversary arrangements today will include a wreath-laying ceremony at the bomb site in Oslo, a speech by the prime minister, a church service attended by the royal family in Oslo’s cathedral, a ceremony for survivors on Utoya and a memorial concert in downtown Oslo.