In a symbolic gesture of tolerance, hundreds of Norwegians formed on Saturday, February 28, a human chain around Oslo mosque, showing respect and solidarity with the Muslim community amid soaring Islamophobic attacks across Europe.
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"We want to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Muslim fellow citizens to show disgust towards increasing Muslim hate and xenophobia in society," the Facebook page of the event read, Huffington Post reported.
"In this time of fear and polarization we feel it is more important than ever to stand together and show solidarity.
"We believe in and will highlight [the] human will to live together in peace and in [respect] for each other regardless of religion [and] ethnicity."
Called the “Peace Ring”, the ring was formed around the Central Jamaat-E Ahl-E Sunnat mosque in Oslo.
It came in response to an earlier Muslim human shield that was formed around Oslo synagogue last weekend.
The shield was attended by more than 1000 Norwegian Muslims who flocked to Oslo’s synagogue, forming a human shield as a symbolic protection for the Jewish community in the Scandinavian country.
The shield was formed as part of an event organized by Norway Muslim community to offer support to Jews after Copenhagen and Paris extremist attacks.
"Humanity is one and we are here to demonstrate that," Zeeshan Abdullah, one of the organizers of the original ring around the synagogue, told Reuters.
Love Your Neighbor
Attended by hundreds of Norwegians, Saturday's peace ring aimed to show humanity what it truly means to love your neighbor, according to its organizers.
Urging Norwegian faiths to take part in the peace circle, the event organizers described Muslims as "a vulnerable minority in Norwegian society".
“We are a group of people who due to rising fear and polarization in society want to show that we don’t see Muslims as a threat but as an asset,” organizers of the “ring of solidarity” wrote on Facebook last week, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.
“We are glad that Muslims are a part of our society and we feel that they are an exposed minority in Norwegian society."
Norway is home to a small Jewish minority, one of Europe’s smallest, numbering around 1000.
The Muslim population, which has been growing steadily, is 150,000 to 200,000 out of Norway’s 5.2 million population.
Debates over immigration in the country came to the forefront in 2011 when Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people and accused the government and the then-ruling Labour party of facilitating Muslim immigration and adulterating pure Norwegian blood.
Support for immigration has been rising steadily since those attacks, however, and an opinion poll late last year found that 77 percent of people thought immigrants made an important contribution to Norwegian society.
