TOKYO, Japan — Six young Japanese were found dead from asphyxiation in a minivan Friday, charcoal stoves still smoking beside them — apparently the latest victims of a surge in suicide pacts arranged over the Internet.
Authorities said they suspected the five men and a woman, all in their 20s, met online before dying together Thursday night in a forested area 50 miles northwest of Tokyo. The vehicle’s windows had been sealed with tape.
A record 91 people died in 34 Internet-linked suicide cases in Japan in 2005, up from 55 people in 19 cases in 2004, the National Police Agency reported last month. The number of Internet suicide pacts has almost tripled from 2003, when the agency began keeping records.
“Many young people try to kill themselves but can’t carry through. But when a group of strangers meet on an Internet suicide site, and someone suggests a specific way to die … that’s the dangerous dynamic behind the recent group suicides,” [Professor Mafumi] Usui said.
No comment.
This reminds me of a Japanese movie…
If only we could get this fad started in al-Qaeda…
I am always surprised to be reminded of how differently Japanese culture views suicide – at least in the historical sense.
I remember reading how – over the centuries – different names developed for the different [acceptable?] reasons for committing ritual suicide: being disgraced, following a superior into death, protesting a superior’s actions, etc.
When I watched Battle Royale, it was startling to see how many of the students decided to kill themselves – in pairs, or small groups – when trapped in a hopeless situation. [Yes, I konw its “just a movie”]
While in US horror movies, everyone is in a desperate – if futile – attempt to survive.
Of course, it also makes me grin when I see the song labeled “Theme from M.A.S.H”, and wonder how many people know the lyrics? 🙂
If only we could get this fad started in al-Qaeda…
Comment by Frank Baird — 3/13/2006 @ 9:14 am
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Well the terrorists are suicide bombers who coordinate to kill themselves.
Wasn’t this particular suicide in the news about 18 months ago?
Anyway, I wonder what they had cooking on that little charcoal burner 🙂
no zybch, this is a new one……just read about it on the BBC news site a few days ago.
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