Lgbt

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets in Oslo , Norway to pay their respects after two people were killed and more than a dozen injured in a shooting outside a popular LGBT+ venue in the early hours of Saturday.

A man suspected of opening fire at three locations on a busy nightlife district has been charged with terrorism .

One of the shootings happened outside the London Pub, a bar which describes itself as “the most visited gay venue in Norway”.

The city’s annual Pride parade was due to take place on Saturday but was cancelled by organisers upon the advice of police.

Despite the event being formally cancelled, scores of people marched through the capital on Saturday to pay their respects for the victims and show solidarity with the LGBT+ community.

Video footage, posted on Twitter by user @formulamaja, showed crowds of people clapping, cheering and waving Pride flags.

She also shared a photograph of dozens of floral tributes left in honour of those affected.

“After an attack on a gay bar in Oslo last night, Pride was officially cancelled but people spontaneously gathered and marched to the bar to leave flowers,” she wrote.

“Seeing people crying, cheering and being courageous to go to the streets is the most beautiful thing I witnessed.”

Other users have also posted photographs of tributes, left at various points throughout the nightlife district.

Videos shared by Filter News , a Norway-based news organisation, shows crowds of people marching through the city while chanting, “We’re here, we’re queer, we won’t disappear”.

In a statement via Facebook following the shooting, Norway’s Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Stoere said the shooting “was a cruel and deeply shocking attack on innocent people” and had caused fear and grief in the LGBT+ community.

“We all stand by you,” Mr Gahr Stoere wrote.

King Harald V of Norway also offered condolences and said he and Norway’s Royal Family are “horrified by the night’s shooting tragedy”.

“We sympathise with all relatives and affected and send warm thoughts to all who are now scared, restless and in grief,” the Norwegian monarch said in a statement.

“We must stand together to defend our values: freedom, diversity and respect for each other. We must continue to stand up for all people to feel safe.”

Additional reporting by agencies

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that a woman cannot be born with a penis “without being a man” during a trip to Rwanda, but warned that people must be “very, very sensitive” when discussing such issues.

Johnson, who leads Britain’s governing Conservative (Tory) Party, was speaking after FINA, the sporting body which regulates international swimming competitions, ruled that biological males who identify as women will have to compete in a special “open” category if they have been through puberty — a move widely interpreted as a response to 6’1″ biologically male swimmer Lia Thomas smashing collegiate records in the United States.

“Look it’s very, very important that as a society we should be as understanding of everybody else as possible. I’ve always stood for that,” Johnson told reporters, but added: “When you start to move from issues of sexuality to issues of gender you start to raise particular problems.”

“I think I’ve spoken of three concerns I’ve had in the past. They are to do with the age at which you [become] competent to transition, the question of safe spaces for women, and the difficulties you have in sporting competitions,” he added, also referring to issues around so-called trans kids and allowing biologically intact males into places like women’s toilets and hospital wards — the latter of which has seen some women raped .

“These are all very difficult problems and you have to be very, very sensitive,” he added.

‘There was No Male In the Hospital’ – UK Hospital Covered Up Rape by Trans Patient https://t.co/82KNMy7W27

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 18, 2022

While the Conservative Party and its leader occasionally express conservative views on “culture war” issues such as transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, far-left race ideology being taught in state schools, and the fate of public memorials and statues retroactively deemed problematic, it does not have a strong record of actually taking action on them.

Indeed, the restrictions on trans swimmers in women’s competitions came from FINA, not the government, and National Health Service (NHS) hospitals continue to allow biological males into women’s spaces, among other state and state-funded institutions.

Woke concepts such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) and white privilege also seem to have only increased their grip on British schools since the Tories first regained office in 2010, and the LGBT organisation Stonewall, which criticised reporters for even asking Johnson about women with penises in Rwanda, is effectively state-sponsored in some respects, with at least one NHS trust giving preference to public contractors associated with it.

LGBTQ ‘Equality Index’ Used to Award Contracts by UK Health Service Trust https://t.co/MXcEMWUkOm

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 12, 2022

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBM ontgomery

Follow Breitbart London on Facebook: Breitbart London

OSLO, Norway (AP) – The suspect in Saturday´s mass shooting during an LGBTQ festival in Oslo has agreed to be held in pretrial custody for four weeks and will therefore not appear in court on Monday, a Norwegian court said.

Zaniar Matapour, a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, was arrested shortly after the predawn shooting in Oslo´s nightlife district and was held on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and terrorism. Two people were killed and more than 20 were wounded in what the Norwegian security service called an “Islamist terror act.”

The motive is unknown and Matapour has refused to explain his actions to investigators. His lawyer, John Christian Elden, said that his client objects to having his statement recorded and videotaped unless police release the entire recording to the public “with no time delay so it won´t be censored or manipulated.” Recording interrogations is a standard police practice.

In Norway, pre-trial detention hearings are normally held every four weeks.

Matapour arrived in Norway with his family from a Kurdish part of Iran in the 1990s, according to Norwegian media.

The gunman opened fire at three locations, including outside the London Pub, a popular gay bar in downtown Oslo. Police investigators have said it is too early to say whether the attacker specifically targeted the LGBTQ community.

Police on Monday identified the two victims as Kåre Arvid Hesvik, born in 1962, and Jon Erik Isachsen, born in 1968.

A Pride parade scheduled for Saturday was canceled because of the shooting.

Royal Mail has revealed images of a new set of “vibrantly illustrated” stamps to mark the 50th anniversary of the UK’s first Pride rally.

The eight stamps celebrate a march that took place from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park in London in July 1972, which was the first to bear the name Gay Pride Rally.

The march was inspired by events in the United States, where the first Pride events had taken place to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York.

The stamps, specially commissioned by Royal Mail, were illustrated by award-winning artist Sofie Birkin, art directed by NB Studio and Royal Mail consulted with its internal LGBT & Friends Network.

They depict the first Gay Pride rally and early Pride events where participants shouted slogans such as, “Gay is fun! Gay is proud! Gay is beautiful!”, to the more recent update on the traditional rainbow flag.

David Gold, of Royal Mail, said: “The vibrant, colourful Pride events that take place in towns and cities across the UK today trace their origins to a small number of people who marched through central London half a century ago to raise awareness of discrimination and inequality.

“There have been huge changes in laws and social attitudes, but Pride events continue to play a key role in raising awareness of discrimination, as well as celebrating diversity and individualism.”

Alan Dye, creative director of NB Studio, said: “It was a real honour to be asked to design this iconic series for the Royal Mail, as they represent such an important part of British LGBTQ+ history.

“Watching these beautiful illustrations come to life, you could easily imagine yourself as part of the ‘March Through Time’.”

NB Studio has created a film using the illustrations featured in the stamps, in collaboration with animation studio Animade.

Tom Daley is “furious” over world swimming bosses’ decision to ban transgender athletes from elite women’s competitions.

Daley, 28, told reporters at the British LGBT Awards on Friday that the decision by FINA – the governing body for international water sports – is “not on”.

After collecting his sports personality of the year award, he told iNews: “I was furious.

“You know, like most queer people, anyone that’s told they can’t compete or can’t do something they love just because of who they are, it’s not on.

“It’s something I feel really strongly about. Giving trans people the chance to share their side.”

According to new FINA rules, transgender women who have gone through male puberty are not allowed to compete in women’s events. Their testosterone levels in serum or plasma must have been consistently under 2.5 nmol/L since the age of 12.

By contrast, the regulation state: “Female-to-male transgender athletes (transgender men) are fully eligible to compete in men’s swimming competitions.”

New ‘open’ category will open up sport to all

Separately, FINA says it has commissioned a working group to create an “open” category.

It claims it will give “everyone the opportunity to compete at elite level”, opening up competitions to those who have “complete androgen insensitivity and therefore could not experience male puberty”.

Former Olympic medal-winning swimmer Sharron Davies said FINA is “standing up for fair sport for females”, but there has been a bitter backlash elsewhere.

Transgender rights in sport have been put back in the spotlight after the International Rugby League banned transgender women , claiming it would “balance the individual’s right to participate”.

The surrounding conversation intensified after University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender NCAA champion in Division I history after winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle earlier this year .

Before that, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard last year became the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

President of World Athletics Lord Coe suggested his sport could soon follow swimming, warning that “fairness is non-negotiable”.