Wants to have better dialogue with those who may be terrorist targets.
On Thursday morning, the leader of Oslo Pride met the head of the Police Security Service (PST). He wants answers to 19 questions.
Last week did VG it is known that a secret agent was notified of a possible attack before the shooting against the queer community in Oslo last year. PST was notified, but the tip was too little specific to stop the attack.
Two were killed and many injured, when Zaniar Matapour shot at confirmation at the pubs Per on the corner and London pub.
Could anything have been done differently?
The head of Pride Oslo, Dan Bjørke, expects PST to respond to this in the near future. On Thursday, he met PST CEO Beate Gangås and analysts in PST.
PST had wanted to meet to restore trust.
Bjørke says it was important to emphasize for the PST chief that it is difficult for the biased environment to understand that information has been received about a possible terrorist incident ahead of Oslo Pride, without taking any action.
– We feel at PST that we understand that frustration, he says.
After the meeting, he is still pending.
– What we are satisfied with is that PST takes the initiative for a meeting and signals that they want to have a closer dialogue going forward.
Will not admit wrongdoing
The questions Oslo Pride believes PST is guilty of answering are, among other things, about the handling of the shooting on 25 June, and whether PST lacks insight and expertise in the situation of queer people in Norway.
PST boss Gangås rejects cash when PST has underestimated the threat to the queer environment. But at the same time that PST had received a tip about a possible terrorist threat, they chose to downgrade the threat assessment for Islamic terror.
– The overall assessment indicated that it was possible to go down, she says.
At the same time, she admits that communication between PST and representatives of groups that may be terrorist targets should be better.
– We have a potential for improvement when it comes to communicating with representing large groups in society that are at risk. There is an obvious need for representatives of these organizations to get more information and help to interpret these threat assessments, says Gangås.
Denies that they did nothing
Gangås says that PST worked hard to get more information about the threat they had received from the E-service. The information was too little specific for them to pass it on to the Oslo police.
– But intensive work was done with this information to enrich it, to get as much and precise information as possible so that it could be passed on.
The 25 July committee will look at the sequence of events surrounding the shooting last year.
The PST leader encourages everyone who worked on the shooting to provide all information to the committee.
– Can you feel safe in Norway today?
– Yes, they can. But queerness is still part of the target image for actors who want to hurt us, says Gangås.