Stop Islamisation of Norway ( no, Stopp islamiseringen av Norge, SIAN) is a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

anti-Muslim Islamophobia is the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or a source of terrorism. The scope and precise definition of the term ''Islamophobia'' ...

group that was established in 2008, although its history goes back to a group started in 2000. Its stated aim is to work against

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

, which it defines as a

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...

political ideology that violates the

Norwegian Constitution nb, Kongeriket Norges Grunnlov nn, Kongeriket Noregs Grunnlov , jurisdiction =Kingdom of Norway , date_created =10 April - 16 May 1814 , date_ratified =16 May 1814 , system =Constitutional monarchy , b ...

as well as democratic and human values. The organisation is currently led by, formerly by

Arne Tumyr Arne Tumyr (6 March 1933 – 17 February 2023) was a Norwegian journalist, newspaper editor, politician and leader of Stop Islamisation of Norway. Career and activism Tumyr grew up in Ask in Askøy, from where he moved in 1950. He was educated ...

, and has several thousand members and supporters. By mid-2011, it was reported that the organisation had close to 13,000 members or "likes" on its ''

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

'' group, although it gathered only a modest attendance at its meetings and demonstrations. The organisation itself had in excess of 3,000 members, mainly based in Oslo but followed by

Stavanger Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the a ...

. These figures made it by far the biggest organisation of the

Stop Islamisation of Europe Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) is a pan-European counter-jihad organisation with the stated goal of "preventing Islam from becoming a dominant political force in Europe". It is a political interest group which has been active in Denmark and ...

counter-jihad Counter-jihad, also spelled counterjihad and known as the counter-jihad movement, is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and campaign organisations all linked by apocalyptic beli ...

network. In 2012 SIAN broke with the mother organisation Stop Islamisation of Europe.

History

The predecessor to SIAN was started in early 2000 as the Action Committee Against Prayer Calling (''Aksjonskomiteen mot bønnerop''), originally to protest against a request by the Islamic Cultural Centre to broadcast the

Adhan Adhan ( ar, أَذَان ; also variously transliterated as athan, adhane (in French), azan/azaan (in South Asia), adzan (in Southeast Asia), and ezan (in Turkish), among other languages) is the Islamic call to public prayer (salah) in a mos ...

(prayer calling) at a local

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

Mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

using loudspeakers. On 11 September 2000, the group changed its name to Forum Against Islamisation (''Forum mot islamisering'', FOMI). In November 2000, about a dozen members of FOMI held a demonstration against Adhan from Mosques in Norway and Islamisation. Legislation to ban Adhan by loudspeakers was proposed in parliament by

Carl I. Hagen Carl-Ivar Hagen (born 6 May 1944) is a Norwegian politician and former Vice President of the Storting, the Norwegian parliament. He was the leader of the Progress Party from 1978 to 2006, when he stepped down in favour of Siv Jensen. Under hi ...

and the Progress Party, but was voted down by all other parties. In 2004, the two Jewish founders of the Norwegian Israel Centre were expelled from the Mosaic Religious Community (Jewish community of Oslo), after they had joined FOMI and the Democrats party for the annual commemoration of the ''

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...

''. Former resistance fighter

Erik Gjems-Onstad Erik-Ørn Gjems-Onstad, MBE (22 February 1922 – 18 November 2011) was a Norwegian resistance member, officer, lawyer, sports official, politician, author and anti-immigration activist. Gjems-Onstad joined the Norwegian resistance movement af ...

was the internal meeting leader of FOMI from 2001 to 2009. As a new series of "Stop Islamisation" groups started become established around Europe, the name was on 16 February 2008 changed to its current name, Stop Islamisation of Norway. Arne Tumyr in debate

SIAN was joined by Gjems-Onstad, and the leader of the

Norwegian Patriots The Norwegian Patriots ( no, NorgesPatriotene, NP) was a short-lived political party in Norway led by Øyvind Heian whose sole aim was to stop non-western immigration to Norway. The party ran for election limited to the county of Vestfold in the ...

, Øyvind Heian in May 2009 for an anti-Islamism demonstration in Oslo. They were heavily outnumbered by counter-demonstrators. Tumyr also compared Muslim immigration to Norway with the Nazi invasion of Norway in 1940. In June 2009, SIAN was again joined by Heian for a demonstration in Oslo. The Blitz movement and the Red Party in turn held an illegal counter-demonstration, against what they called "Nazis and racists". Both demonstrations developed into minor street clashes. Tumyr and SIAN were joined by the leader of the Democrats party,

Vidar Kleppe Vidar Sveinung Kleppe (born 16 September 1963) is a Norwegian politician. He was a member of parliament and deputy leader of the Progress Party until he was suspended and left the party in 2001. He was the leader of the Democrats party from 200 ...

, for speeches when SIAN held an arrangement in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

in August 2010.

SOS Rasisme SOS Rasisme was a Norwegian organisation, whose stated goal was to "fight racism and nazism." It was founded in 1985, as the Norwegian sister organisation of the French SOS Racisme. It went bankrupt in 2013 after being convicted of defrauding the g ...

held a counter-demonstration at the event. On 11 September, SIAN held a commemoration of the

September 11 terror attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, and were joined by

Anders Gravers Pedersen Anders Gravers Pedersen (born 13 May 1960) is a Danish anti-Islam activist. He is the chairman and founder of Stop the Islamisation of Denmark (SIAD) and leader of Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE). He has also been part of the transatlantic con ...

. Some groups of SOS Rasisme and Blitz movement activists tried to disrupt the event. The leader of the local

Nordstrand Nordstrand may refer to: Places ;Germany * Nordstrand, Germany, a peninsula in Germany * Nordstrand (Amt), a former municipality in Nordfriesland, Germany ;Norway * Nordstrand, Norway, a borough in Oslo, Norway * Søndre Nordstrand, a borough in ...

chapter of the Socialist Left Party in Oslo, Morten Schau, joined SIAN to much controversy in January 2011. He resigned from the Socialist Left Party later the same day, after the leader of the Oslo chapter deemed membership of SIAN as "incompatible" with being a member of the party. In February 2011 Walid al-Kubaisi joined a meeting hosted by SIAN, where he held a speech. The Blitz movement demonstrated outside the arrangement, and al-Kubaisi needed police escort to get to the meeting. When questioned about the organisation's relation to the newly emerged Norwegian Defence League, Tumyr stated that their ideology, intent on "stopping Islam" was the same, although their means of expression differed. In 2016, Swedish-Somali activist

Mona Walter Mona Walter (born 1973) is a Swedish activist and social commentator. She was born in Mogadishu, Somalia and moved to Sweden as a refugee in 1994. Raised Muslim, Walter converted to Christianity and published writings critical of Islam via her ...

held a speech for the organisation. In 2012 there was a split in the organisation after the leader Arne Tumyr refused to cooperate with Norwegian Defense League. SIAN left the mother organisation Stop Islamization of Europe (SIOE), while former board member Kaspar Birkeland formed a new organisation SION that is associated with SIOE. As Lars Thorsen became leader of the group in 2019, SIAN has started to repeatedly burn the Quran at their rallies. After a Quran burning event in July 2022, a vehicle with five SIAN-activists including Thorsen was deliberately crashed into, causing their vehicle to be flipped around onto its roof. A woman was arrested after the attack.

Organisation

Local radio

In March 2012, the local chapter of SIAN in

Rogaland Rogaland () is a Counties of Norway, county in Western Norway, bordering the North Sea to the west and the counties of Vestland to the north, Vestfold og Telemark to the east and Agder to the east and southeast. In 2020, it had a population of 47 ...

(the organisation's largest chapter) started a local radio show in

Sandnes Sandnes () is a city and municipality in Rogaland, Norway. It lies immediately south of Stavanger, the 4th largest city in Norway and together, the Stavanger/Sandnes area is the third-largest urban area in Norway. The urban city of Sandnes lies ...

on the ''Radio Kos'' channel. The channel's

internet radio Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...

in turn had to increase its capacity from 25,000 listeners to 200,000 due to high traffic around the same time.

Views by commentators

In a comment in ''

Aftenposten ( in the masthead; ; Norwegian for "The Evening Post") is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen) and estimated 1.2 million ...

'' in 2004,

Jahn Otto Johansen Jahn Otto Johansen (3 May 1934 – 1 January 2018) was a Norwegian journalist, newspaper editor, foreign correspondent and non-fiction writer. He worked for the newspaper '' Morgenposten'' from 1956 to 1966, for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp ...

called the former FOMI "extremely Muslim-hostile." The then secretary general of the

Norwegian Humanist Association The Norwegian Humanist Association ( no, Human-Etisk Forbund; HEF) is one of the largest secular humanist associations in the world, with over 130,000 members. Those members constitute 2.3% of the national population of 5.47 million, making HEF b ...

Lars Gule Lars Gule (born 24 June 1955) is a Norwegian philosopher. He has graduated with a doctorate in philosophy, and is an associate professor (at Oslo Metropolitan University). From 2000 to 2005 he was secretary general of the Norwegian Humanist As ...

, has also stated that the organisation "uses a hateful and vulgar language with a clearly discriminating content." In December 2005, the court decision against NHA fell in the case of libel initiated by the leader of SIAN, Arne Tumyr, after the former chair woman of the NHA board publicly had characterised a letter to the editor from Tumyr as "racist". Ingunn Økland of ''Aftenposten'' has criticized the use both by SIAN and its opponents of labelling each other "Nazi" in the Islam debate. On the other hand, Iraqi refugee and writer Walid al-Kubaisi has made appearances in the organisation, and in the feature story "Norway for Norwegians" (''Norge for nordmenn'') in ''

Klassekampen ''Klassekampen'' ( en, The Class Struggle) is a Norwegian daily newspaper. It describes itself as "the newspaper of the Left." The paper's net circulation is 34,000 (2021), and it has around 111,000 daily readers on paper (160,000 on Saturdays). ...

'' in 2005 stated that "the forum showed a variation of thoughts and opinions within the frame of fear of Islamism. The fear of Islamism is healthy and legitimate for the population of Europe, and in the Muslim world.

References

{{reflist

External links