Here's a slightly strange story from today's Indy which looks at the foiling of an online suicide pact in Spain:
An elaborate suicide plot by three students has been foiled by journalists from a television programme who infiltrated the group and then passed the details to police in an extraordinary case which has both intrigued and appalled Spaniards.
After being charged with the criminal offence of preparing to commit suicide, the students were released into psychiatric care. Their identities have not been revealed, but the details of their conspiracy have provided rare insight into the growing phenomenon of suicide pacts conducted over the internet.
When two journalists from the Con Ana Rosa Quintana show - a kind of Spanish Richard and Judy - stumbled upon the pact while exploring an internet health site, they anonymously joined the cybergroup, pretending to sympathise with the project.
Having obtained the mobile phone number of one of the group, the journalists, whose names have not been released, communicated frequently as plans were finalised for the date and location of the suicide. The students apparently never spoke of a religious or cultish motive for the conspiracy.
Whether or not it should be a criminal offence to prepare to commit suicide, that's another argument, but internet suicide pacts have made headlines in the past - especially in Japan, as we have reported several times before.
Of course, all the web has to do with these cases is enabling people to communicate with each other. It's no more to blame for the deaths than the telephone is to blame for two people falling out when they have an argument over the phone.
I wonder if we'll see some "NET DEATH PACT" headlines, though.
