The self-described perpetrator of Norway's deadly bombing and shooting rampage is now held in solitary confinement. Anders Behring Breivik, who has admitted bombing the capital and opening fire on a youth group retreat on an island resort, told authorities he expects to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Declaring he wanted to save Europe from "Muslim domination," he entered a plea of not guilty that will guarantee him future court hearings and opportunities to address the public, even indirectly.

While Norway has been stunned by the attacks and riveted by Breivik's paranoid and disturbing writings, Chinese scholars and average people alike are also pouring their thoughts on this tragedy.

Gu Dening, media critic:

The Oslo tragedy at least gives us three warnings: one, even if a society is in good condition, we can never let become blasé to its possible threats; second, we should pay special attention to the development of a culture of violence; third, the unconstrained reports of vicious crimes and exaggerations may extend the scale of crime or even motivate it.

Shen Xuhui,associate professor, The Hong Kong Institute of Education:

Contemporary terrorism has a “local ecological system” - the terrorist does not need an organization to devise an attack, nor does he need one to publicize or receive radical thoughts. Social networking websites makes both of these possible.

He Jingjun, scholar

The conflict of ideas between the left-wing ruling party and the right-wing opposition party makes Norway take on a very special social form, which makes dissatisfied people have a tendency to take extreme actions. For welfare states like North European countries, when there is a downturn in the economy, there will be a greater need to change, which is also a dangerous moment to breed extremism.

(Source: qq.com)

@Yujiaolong2010

In Norway, even though a person killed more than 80 people, he still retains the right to state his reasons, beliefs and opinions. I personally think the cruelest torture cannot exceed the punishment he should receive and no more misleading nonsense should be allowed from him, but giving him the right of speech shows the due respect for a person. A country should not have only one voice.

@Chengpinwangluzuirenzhenxiaobian

Watching the Norwegian news, my heart keeps sinking bit by bit. I am always reminded of a book by Jo Nesbo which I read several days ago. I cannot imagine what kind of belief it is that can make a person pick up his gun to kill a group of innocent people. Maybe it is because of a historic context. Although nearly a century will have passed since the World War II, something will never end...

@Biyue Pius Some

People criticize Christian beliefs because of the Norwegian massacre, but please pay attention to the photo in which the suspect wears Freemasonry uniform. In history, the Freemasonry and Knights Templar has some secret relationship, but the latter has been punished by the Church and the Lord. Additionally, Pope Clemens XII already publicly criticized the Freemasonry. Therefore, the suspect is using the historical term as a shield for terrorism. His idea of “ethnic cleansing” and “expelling Muslims” completely contradicts with the Christian spirit of love.

@Baixian

Norwegian suspect Anders Behring Breivik said, “One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests.” It is so horrible for an extremist to bear it in mind and build a belief system upon it. By comparison, most of us only have interests, dreams and narcissism in our careers and jobs.

(Source: Sina Weibo)

Li Rushi, commentator

For those murderers or severe-crime committers, life imprisonment or suspended death sentence gives them a chance of parole or commutation. This is, with no doubt, a violation of rights of the victims’ relatives. Even if forgiveness is given, it should be given by the victims or their relatives voluntarily without the intervention of public opinion or the court.

(Source: eastday.com)

Li Zhenzhong, commentator

For any individual or organization that makes terrorist attacks, the methods they use are in nature cold-blooded and anti-human. International anti-terrorism standards should not consider the question of who are friends with terrorists, but the question of how to align the standards of fighting against anti-human crimes. The whole world, the whole human race, should be unified to resist, strike and eliminate them.

(Source: Xinhua)

Zhao Chen, commentator

There are two main reasons for extreme-right power to return: one is the impact on European welfare state regime that the negative effect of globalization imposes, which influences the from-cradle-to-grave welfare for education and health care. The low-cost labor force from some Asian countries compels the revolution in a lot of countries like Germany and France, where the original welfare pattern no longer continues, which intensifies the dissatisfaction of the general public about the governments. The other reason is for immigrants. A low-grade labor force is needed for the European service sector and immigrants fit the bill. Therefore, the Muslim labor force from the Arab World competes for job opportunities that belong to the white men, which makes the extreme-right power return.

(Source: People's Daily)