The notorious manifesto of far-right terrorist Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway’s worst peacetime atrocity, was listed for sale by Britain’s biggest book chain, Waterstones.
Investigators found Breivik’s manifesto on the website last Wednesday before it was removed after the bookseller was informed.
Breivik killed eight people with a car bomb in Oslo before heading to a youth camp on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers, in a gun attack in July 2011.
The right-wing extremist launched his 1,500 page anti-Muslim manifesto hours before committing his attacks.
The document charts Breivik’s attempts to mentally prepare and acquire the weaponry and explosives needed for his bomb and gun attacks with some sections plagiarised from writings by America’s Unabomber.
Investigators at Tech Against Terrorism, a UN-backed online counter-terrorism organisation, found the manifesto for sale on the Waterstones site, which also owns Foyles and Hatchards. The manifesto, called “2083 – A European Declaration of Independence” was promoted in three parts, priced at £30-£48.
The manifesto’s entry also featured an author page for the 43-year-old Norwegian extremist. But the chain said the manifesto could not be bought. “These titles were never stocked in our bookshops and were not available to order on our website or in shops. At no point were these titles part of our curation,” a spokesperson said.
Experts say such material could violate UK counter-terrorism legislation. In 2021 Sam Imrie, from Glenrothes, Fife, was convicted of encouraging terrorism as well as collecting information useful to an individual preparing an act of terrorism, after Breivik’s manifesto was found in his home.
Tech Against Terrorism identified that the version of the manifesto listed by Waterstones featured a verified international standard book number (ISBN) and was published by a private limited company registered in Estonia since September 2019.
However, Waterstones said it did not have a “trading relationship” with the publisher making it impossible for the manifesto to be ordered through the chain.
Waterstones added that it received title information for listings through an automated feed from Nielsen Book Data, the main aggregator for the UK book trade, with the retailer saying it gave extra scrutiny to review the listing and excluded unacceptable titles.
“With the size of the catalogue running into the tens of millions, inevitably some escape both Nielsen and our scrutiny. As soon as these are noticed, they are removed,” the spokesperson said.
Adam Hadley, executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, said the incident raised concerns over whether UK laws were sufficient for such cases.
“This discovery highlights an ambiguity in existing and proposed content moderation legislation. To what extent would either the Terrorism Act or the forthcoming online safety bill cover books sold on mainstream websites?”
