Terror fight sparks anguish in immigrant suburbs in Nordic region

Finland only Nordic country with no ongoing terrorism investigations

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By Kalle Koponen
     
      "We have started to be afraid. I like Denmark, but nowadays I feel that people on the street stare at me", says one Palestinian-born woman in Odense, Denmark. Her feelings are shared by many Muslims in the Nordic Countries. The international fight against terrorism came into her neighbourhood store when a man working at the cash register was arrested along with eight others. Seven of the men are still being held. They are under investigation in a case which the Danish Minister of Justice has described as the most serious in the country's history.
      A couple of weeks later four people were arrested on suspicion of planning a bomb attack against the embassies of the United States and Israel. In Sweden, meanwhile, three young men were given a prison sentence this past summer over a planned arson attack against a prayer room of a Christian congregation in Uppsala.
     
The shadow of terrorism has fallen over the Nordic region as well. Security services are hard at work, and ordinary Muslims are having a difficult time. "I have five sons and I always tell them that they must not even talk about anything like that, lest officials get the wrong impression", said one fearful Palestinian woman in Odense.
      The situation is the most difficult in Denmark, but similar feelings prevail in the other countries.
      "Sometimes I feel personal fear that if something happens while I am on the move, there might be suspicions that I am one of the terrorists", says Somali-born journalist Sukri Omar, who lives in Helsinki.
      In Norway the atmosphere is fairly calm, in spite of recent arrests. "The atmosphere is good. I do not believe that the arrests are linked with religious terrorism; I think that just ordinary crime is involved", says Imran Shahid in Oslo. Shahid serves as secretary-general of the largest mosque and Islamic cultural centre in the Nordic region.
     
Officials in all the Nordic Countries have been granted added powers since the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001.
      In Sweden, two court cases led to convictions under the new law on terrorism that came into effect in 2003. In the first one, two men were given prison sentences of four and five years for raising funds for a group which was responsible for a bomb attack in Kirkuk, in Iraq, which claimed the lives of more than 100 people.
     
In the most recent case , security services of the United States, Britain, and Israel looked for who might be behind a video threatening holy war in Europe over the occupation of Iraq. The video was traced back to a 19-year-old Bosnian boy who lives with his parents in Trelleborg in the south of Sweden. The Swedish security police SÄPO listened to his phone calls, read his e-mails and messages he sent to Internet chat rooms, and learned about a plan he had hatched with two other young men to burn facilities belonging to a Christian sect in Uppsala.
      DNA tests taken from a pair of gloves showed that at least one of them, a 22-year-old Iranian boy, had previously taken part in an attempt to burn a polling station set up for Iraqi citizens in Kista near Stockholm.
      His partner, a 25-year-old Swede, sent a message to Swedish media outlets signed by "the al-Qaeda high commander in Sweden". The members of the group were given prison sentences last June, varying from eight months to three years.
      The appeals process is still underway. The defence is calling the incident the result of youthful indiscretion prompted by hours of playing war games on the Internet.
     
In Norway, four men are being held on suspicion of planning a bomb attack. The men are also suspected of having fired about ten shots into the wall of an Oslo synagogue.
      The main suspect is a 29-year-old Pakistani-born man. The Norwegian security service PST has kept him under surveillance for months with the help of microphones placed in his car. The surveillance began in the summer after German police detained the man for a short period of time. Instruction booklets and large sums of money were found in his car.
      The man was known by the police for committing a number of juvenile crimes, and as a member of the Young Guns gang.
      "Social services officials have known him to be a troublemaker ever since he was young. This could be a case of a psychological imbalance of some kind", says Norwegian terrorism expert Thore Bjørgo, a professor at Norway's Police Academy. Professor Bjørgo is part of a group of experts at the European Union slated to give recommendations to the Commission early next year.
      "This case is exceptional in that only the main perpetrator seems to have had some kind of Islamist motivation, and that developed at quite a late stage", Bjørgo says.
     
In Finland, the Security Police (SUPO) is monitoring the situation, using wiretaps and other methods, but no criminal investigations have been necessary. "The obvious difference with other Nordic Countries is the small size of the Muslim population", says Toby Archer, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
      "And the Finnish Muslim community mainly comprises Somalis, who are not extensively involved in international jihadism", Archer says. Another reason in his view is that the Muslim minority is fairly new, mainly comprising first-generation immigrants.
      "It seems that those who perpetrate actual acts of terror in Europe are mostly either born here, or have lived here for a long time", Archer notes. Most of the people with a Muslim background who were born in Finland are still children.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.10.2006

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 COMMENTARY: Two different situations in Nordic region

KALLE KOPONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
kalle.koponen@hs.fi