Gothenburg nightclub fire - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Gothenburg discothèque fire was a fire

Fire

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....

with disastrous consequences that occurred on the night of October 29, 1998. The fire started on premises rented by an organization catering to the Macedonian

Macedonians (ethnic group)

The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...

community in Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

, located on Hisingen island

Hisingen

Hisingen is the fourth-largest island of Sweden , with an area of , and the most populous, forming part of Gothenburg Municipality, Västra Götaland County. It is bordered by the Göta älv in the south and east, the Nordre älv in the north, and the Kattegat in the west...

in Gothenburg, Sweden, where a discothèque had been arranged that night. There were 375 youths, aged 12–25 years, on the premises, which were rated by the fire department

Fire department

A fire department or fire brigade is a public or private organization that provides fire protection for a certain jurisdiction, which typically is a municipality, county, or fire protection district...

as capable of holding 150 persons. Of those in the building, 63 people died and around 200 people were injured.

The fire

The fire started on the premises of the Macedonian organization located on the third floor, where a discothèque for high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

students had been arranged to celebrate Halloween

Halloween

Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...

. It was started in the stairway

Stairway

Stairway, staircase, stairwell, flight of stairs, or simply stairs are names for a construction designed to bridge a large vertical distance by dividing it into smaller vertical distances, called steps...

to which the emergency exit

Emergency exit

An emergency exit in a structure is a special exit for emergencies such as a fire: the combined use of regular and special exits allows for faster evacuation, while it also provides an alternative if the route to the regular exit is blocked by fire, etc....

faces. Because of this, the emergency exit was not usable, making a single stairway the only route available for escape. Many youths jumped out the windows, but since the windows were 2.2 metres (7.2 ft) from the floor as well as 5 metres (16.4 ft) from the ground level this was difficult. The fire safety

Fire safety

Fire safety refers to precautions that are taken to prevent or reduce the likelihood of a fire that may result in death, injury, or property damage, alert those in a structure to the presence of a fire in the event one occurs, better enable those threatened by a fire to survive, or to reduce the...

was generally poor on the site.

The first emergency call

Emergency Call

Emergency Call is a British film released in 1952 by Nettlefold Films. The film was directed by Lewis Gilbert and stars Jack Warner in a familiar role playing a policeman, Anthony Steel, Joy Shelton and Sid James as a dubious boxing promoter....

occurred at 23:42, but due to the noise on the site, it took a while before the operator could comprehend the address. At 23:45 a so-called "big dispatch" occurred at a fire station

Fire station

A fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...

located on the island, and four minutes later the first rescue team arrived on the scene. Later, six other fire crews were dispatched. About 60 youths were rescued by firefighter

Firefighter

Firefighters are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car incidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations...

s with self-contained breathing apparatus; 40 of those youths were brought out through the staircase and 20 youths were taken out via windows. Others escaped by themselves.

Consequences

A total of 63 youths died, and 213 were injured, of whom 50 were seriously injured. For a long time, it was not determined whether the fire was an accident or an arson

Arson

Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

. Within a few days, it was speculated that the fire, of which the victims were mainly immigrants, was started by xenophobic

Xenophobia

Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...

or racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

Swedes. Poster

Poster

A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...

s were distributed in Gothenburg, containing the text "60 immigrant youths have died, now 60 Swedes shall die." It was later learned that the four arsonists were immigrants themselves, from Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

.

On June 1, 1999, it was reported that two suspects had been arrested but later let go. In December, a reward of 3 million kronor

Swedish krona

The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...

was promised for the person or persons who could give information that would identify the cause of the fire. At that time, no one knew how the fire had actually started, despite the interrogation

Interrogation

Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...

of over 1,400 persons by the Swedish police. During that month, the police also asked for leads via a national TV show

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

. In January 2000, three suspects were taken into custody by the police, and in February the fourth was brought in. However, they had been suspected of arson before the reward was offered. No preliminary investigation was started against the party's arrangers. Some of the victims were friends of Greek singer Elena Paparizou

Elena Paparizou

Eleni "Elena" Paparizou , usually referred to abroad as Helena Paparizou, is a Greek-Swedish singer and occasional songwriter, who was born and raised in Sweden by Greek parents. She began her career there in 1999 as a member of the duo Antique, while she also worked briefly as a model for a...

; she herself had wanted to attend, but was denied permission by her mother.

Criminal prosecution

The fire was started by four teenagers aged 17–19, who were denied entry to the discothèque because of an argument. They were convicted for gross arson, and the firestarter, Shoresh Kaveh, was sentenced by the district court

District court

District courts are a category of courts which exists in several nations. These include:-Australia:District Court is the name given to the intermediate court in most Australian States. They hear indictable criminal offences excluding treason, murder and, in some States, manslaughter...

in 2000 to eight years' imprisonment

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

. Two others, Housein Arsani and Mohammad Mohammadamini, were sentenced to six years in prison, while the fourth, Meysam Mohammadyeh, who was a minor aged 17, received three years in a juvenile care facility. Both the defense and the aggrieved parties made appeals. The court of appeals

Court of Appeals

A court of appeals is an appellate court generally.Court of Appeals may refer to:*Military Court of Appeals *Corte d'Assise d'Appello *Philippine Court of Appeals*High Court of Appeals of Turkey*United States courts of appeals...

upheld two of the verdicts, but the two verdicts of six years' imprisonment were changed to seven years in prison.
Mohammadyeh, called the youngest by the press

News media

The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...

, was defended by Leif Silbersky

Leif Silbersky

Leif Silbersky is a well-known Swedish lawyer and author, living in Stockholm.He is notable for taking many high-profile cases which have enjoyed large media attention, making him one of the most noted lawyers in Sweden....

. It was established that the other three were friends, and even though Mohammadyeh wanted to become a friend of two of those, he was afraid of Kaveh. Silbersky wanted Mohammadyeh to be acquitted, as Silbersky thought he ought not to be held juridically responsible for his passivity. The court of appeals, however, held it as proven that the four "mutually had agreed to ruin the party by starting a fire", and that it was of "decisive importance with regards to the question of guilt that it has not been possible to investigate whether some person or persons other than Kaveh who tore the paper or started the fire in the stairway." Professor Christian Diesen is of the opinion that it is possible that Mohammadyeh had "gotten involved in a sweep he did not belong to and would have been judged differently unless the fire had gotten such tremendous consequences."

Thomas Bodström

Thomas Bodström

Thomas Lennart Bodström is a Swedish politician and member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. He was the Swedish Minister for Justice in the two last succeeding governments of the Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, from 2000 to 2006. Since October 2006 until October 2010 he was the chairman...

, later to become minister of justice in Sweden, was the legal adviser

Legal Adviser

The Legal Adviser of the Department of State is a position within the United States Department of State. It was created by an Act of Congress on February 23, 1931 and given a rank equivalent to that of an Assistant Secretary...

of the aggrieved parties.

Relatives of the victims founded the non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

BOA (association for the relatives of the fire victims), which for instance has had contact with relatives of the victims of a discothèque fire in Volendam

Volendam

Volendam is a town in North Holland in the Netherlands, in the municipality of Edam-Volendam. The town has about 22,000 inhabitants .- History :...

, The Netherlands, and offered support to relatives of victims of the 2004 tsunami. The fire department

Fire department

in Gothenburg, as well as survivors and relatives of victims, also provide information to make youths aware of how quickly a small fire can develop and what consequences it may lead to.

On the decennial of the fire in 2008, a permanent memorial

Memorial

A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....

was unveiled, made out of polished granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

with the names and ages of all the victims engraved

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

in gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

. The monument is located at Backaplan, which is the area on Hisingen where the fire occurred. It was designed by the artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

Claes Hake.

External links

http://www.emergency-management.net/Gothenburg%20Report.pdfUnited States National Fire Protection Association
National Fire Protection Association
The National Fire Protection Association is a United States trade association that creates and maintains private, copywrited, standards and codes for usage and adoption by local governments...

report]
Analysing the Gothenburg fire
Brandrättegången i Göteborg (article about the fire trial in Gothenburg, in Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

)
P3 dokumentär (documentary by the Swedish public service radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

P3)
Brandoffrens anhöriga (homepage of BOA)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

The fire

Consequences

Criminal prosecution

See also

External links