Oslo (Norway), Aug. 1 (ANI): Muslims and immigrants have been left feeling vulnerable after the July 22 shooting and bombing attacks in Norway.
In Drammen, a port city in Norway's east, where 22 percent of the population are immigrants, many people, especially Muslims, have told Sky News they are feeling vulnerable.
The city, home to Pakistanis, Iraqis, Turks, Norwegians and Christians, represents everything Breivik despises - multiculturalism at the heart of Norwegian life.
Councillor Yusuf Gilani, who grew up on the almost exclusively immigrant Fjell estate, said people are scared.
"There was so much hate coming from one man and it was about us," he told Sky.
He added: "People are asking are there other people like him? Some have been wondering if they should move away."
The image of Norway has long been of a tolerant nation imbued with liberal values. But like many places where the immigrant population has grown significantly there are tensions over jobs, housing, a way of life.
Nazim Rizvi, who runs a support group for women of Pakistani and Indian background, said: "If people like Breivik would do what they did to make a point about us, what would they actually do to us?"
"Many who think like him (Breivik) have distanced themselves from what he did. But they have the same thoughts about us and that is frightening," she said.
"And you have to wonder how big is the gap between a thought and an act," she added.
Nazim and other Muslims joined the marches over the last week, holding roses in the air in a very Norwegian show of strength.
And this weekend in Drammen, they invited others to join them in Muslim prayer in remembrance of the dead.
A minister of a local Norwegian church, Reverend Ivar Flaten, said: "This incident, this awful horrendous act will make us stronger because it was an attack on the 'we' of Norway - all of us.
He added: "We are shattered as a nation but we can now see that we can't say it is the problem of others. It is our problem, all of us and we have to deal with it". (ANI)
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