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At least two people were killed and more than a dozen were injured in a shooting Friday night at an LGBTQ nightclub in central Oslo, local police said.
The shooting took place in a London pub that has been considered “the center of gays since 1979,” Norwegian public television NRK reported. The Pride Parade will take place in Oslo on Saturday. Police are also investigating two other locations – a bar near a London pub and a fast food restaurant – in connection with the shooting, according to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.
A spokeswoman for Oslo University Hospital told The Washington Post that the facility had admitted seven patients and another person had been sent to a hospital outside the Norwegian capital. Eleven people who received minor injuries were sent to local emergency departments, she said.
Law enforcement officials said they had detained a man near the scene of the shooting. They did not comment on a possible motive, although a police officer told NRK that they did not currently believe it was a terrorist incident and the evidence showed that there was a lone shooter.
The London Pub is located near the Storting, the Norwegian legislature. He has hosted Pride-related celebrations for years, and on Thursday held a drag show and Pride-based bingo session.
Oslo Pride organizers wrote on social media early Saturday that they were shocked by the incident and contacted police. Law enforcement is assessing the potential impact of the shooting on Saturday’s parade, Aftenposten reported.
The number of gay bars has decreased. A new generation plans to bring them back.
Norway has some of Europe’s more gay-friendly laws. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Jonas Gar Storr marked the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of same-sex relations in the country, formally apologizing for his past treatment of the LGBTQ community.
“I apologize for the fact that the Norwegian authorities have conveyed through legislation, as well as a number of other discriminatory practices, that gay love is not acceptable,” he said.
In July 2011, a Norwegian killed 77 people by setting off a bomb in front of the Prime Minister’s office in Oslo and opening fire on a youth summer camp organized by the Left Labor Party. Party, in one of the most heinous crimes of the Scandinavian country in recent times. Norwegian lawmakers have since banned semi-automatic weapons, such as the firearms used in the 2011 riot.
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