Threats against Norway's LGBTQ+ Pride festival rise following deadly 2022 attack

Norway's domestic security agency says there has been an increase in threats against next week's LGBTQ+ Pride festival in Oslo following a deadly shooting last year at the annual event

Norway Pride Festival (Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB)

Threats have increased against next week's LGBTQ+ Pride festival in Oslo following a deadly shooting last year at the annual event, the Norwegian Police Security Service said Wednesday.

However, the domestic security agency, known by its Norwegian acronym PST, said it was not aware of any concrete danger. The head of its counterterror unit, Lars Lilleby, said the threats might be an attempt to force the cancellation of the July 1 parade.

The threats have come from right-wing extremists and radical Islamists, PST said.

“We all take it very seriously,” Lilleby said. “It is perhaps right now that it is important to carry out this event, we encourage that.”

During last year's festival, a gunman opened fire in Oslo’s nightlife district, killing two people and wounding 20 others. A Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, Zaniar Matapour, was arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder and terrorism. No trial date has been set.

There are three other suspects in the case, including one who reportedly fled to Pakistan. Norway is awaiting his deportation. PST has called the attack an “Islamist terror act.”

Earlier this month, a report commissioned by Norwegian police blasted PST, saying it had been warned by the country's external Intelligence Service that an attack was imminent in a Scandinavian country, with several clues pointing at Norway, and that PST could have prevented the bloodshed.

On Sunday, authorities in Austria said they had foiled a possible attack on Vienna’s Pride parade by three young men who allegedly sympathized with the Islamic State group. Three suspects, aged 14, 17 and 20, were arrested one hour before the start of the parade on Saturday.

A man in his 20s was detained Tuesday in pre-trial custody for four weeks in Oslo for allegedly making threats against the Pride parade in the Norwegian capital. He made the threats by email and other digital forms, police said.