Norwegian Muslims organised a peace vigil in Oslo on Saturday in a show of solidarity with Jews a week after fatal shootings in Denmark targeted a synagogue and free-speech seminar.

As the mainly elderly Jewish congregation filed out of the synagogue after Shabbat prayers, a group of young Muslims, many of them teenage girls wearing headscarves, formed a symbolic ring outside the building to applause from a crowd of more than 1,000 people.

“This shows that there are many more peacemakers than warmakers,” 37-year-old Zeeshan Abdullah, one of the organisers, told the crowd.

“There is still hope for humanity, for peace and love across religious differences and background,” he added, before a traditional Shabbat ceremony was held in the open air with many demonstrators adding their voices to the Hebrew chants.

Norway’s chief rabbi, Michael Melchior, appeared visibly moved when he said it was the first time the ceremony had taken place outdoors with so many people.

Ervin Kohn, a Jewish community leader, said: “It is unique that Muslims stand to this degree against antisemitism and that fills us with hope … particularly as it’s a grassroots movement of young Muslims,” adding that the rest of the world should “look to Norway”.

Kohn said: “Working against fear alone is difficult and it is good that we are so many here together.”

There was a heavy police presence at the event and sharpshooters were placed on surrounding buildings but no incidents were reported.

“It has been calm as we expected. We had no reason to expect any trouble but we were prepared,” said police superintendent Steiner Hausvik.

Several Muslim speakers said that Islam was a religion of peace and that it had nothing to do with terrorism – despite what they said was unfair reporting in certain Nordic media which portrayed Muslims as a problem.

The initiative by Norway’s Muslim youth to link arms with Norwegian Jews in a circle around Oslo’s synagogue was an effort to denounce recent violence by jihadis against Jewish communities in France and Denmark.

Impetus for the vigil came from some young people among Norway’s Muslims, who make up roughly 3% of the nation’s 5.3 million population.



They wanted to demonstrate support for the country’s estimated 1,300 Jews, following one of the attacks in Copenhagen last weekend that killed a 37-year-old volunteer security guard outside the city’s synagogue.

The gunman, named by police as 22-year-old Omar el-Hussein – a Dane of Palestinian origin – was reportedly radicalised by Islamists during a two-year jail term.

Youssef Bartho Assidiq, a Muslim youth leader, said the Oslo event showed that Muslims “stand up for freedom of speech, stand up for freedom of religion and stand up for each other”.

“This is the best possible response we can give to the polarisation we’ve seen in debates after the attacks in France and Denmark,” he said, referring also to the killings last month targeting Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris.

A Norwegian Islamist was convicted in 2008 for a shooting attack on Oslo’s synagogue two years earlier which damaged the building but claimed no casualties.

In 2011, extreme-right mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik shocked Norway by going on a killing spree that left 77 people dead.