Asia-Pacific

Chat rooms foster Japanese suicide pacts

(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-22 08:51

CHICHIBU, Japan - The dirt is still black with charcoal on the mountain road where police found six bodies slumped inside a van, a stove still smoking inside - another in a spate of group suicides officials believe can be traced to the Internet.

Although few Web sites advertise themselves as suicide sites, a search for the words "Shall we die together?" in Japanese turns up pages of links to chat rooms spilling over with death wishes and ideas on how best to commit suicide.

The five men and one woman, all in their 20s and from six different prefectures across Japan, likely met over the Internet before dying together in a forested area 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Tokyo, authorities said.

"We sprinkled rice here to honor their spirits," said Tsuru Kimura, 80, pointing to the white grains on several spots blackened with charcoal on the dirt road. Her son alerted police to the van March 10 on a tip-off from a passer-by, she said.

"I still don't understand why they had to die. And in a place like this?" Kimura said.

Internet suicide pacts have occurred since at least the late 1990s in a number of countries, but they have been most common in Japan, where the suicide rate is among the industrialized world's highest.

A record 91 people died in 34 Internet-linked suicide cases last year, up from 55 people in 19 cases in 2004, according to the latest figures from the National Police Agency. The number of Internet suicide pacts has almost tripled from 2003, when the agency started keeping records.

In March alone, at least 18 people have died in five separate cases of suspected Internet-linked group suicides in Japan _ including three found dead Tuesday in western Japan.

In all those cases, the victims suffocated themselves inside cars using charcoal stoves, often sealing the windows with tape. Most of the dead have been in their 20s and 30s.

"Youngsters find that on Internet chat sites, they can talk about the most intimate of issues with total strangers - including vague notions of wanting to die," says Mafumi Usui, a psychology professor at Niigata Seiryo University.

"Most of them aren't serious (about killing themselves). But say one chat participant starts suggesting concrete plans... That's when the Internet can encourage suicide," Usui said.

A chat room entry dated February 9 and signed by a participant who identified herself as AQUOS reads: "I live in Kyushu, and I have everything ready except a car."

"I'm willing to go anywhere to die. I don't want to fail _ I want to die with certainty," another chat room participant, Haru, replied two days later. There are no further entries from the two.

Alarmed politicians have suggested suicide sites be regulated or shut down.

Last October, police launched an online crackdown with the cooperation of Internet service providers, urging them to report to police the name and address of anyone who appeared to be considering suicide. Since then, authorities have intervened in 12 cases, preventing 14 people from killing themselves, national police said last month.

But Yoshikuni Masuyama, an official at the IT crimes unit of the National Police Agency, had trouble explaining the recent surge in Internet-linked deaths.

"We're baffled," Masuyama said. "We still hope police intervention will have some effect. But of course, it's difficult to prevent all cases."

Some experts warn the crackdown will drive suicidal people to use more obscure or overseas Internet providers, which are almost impossible to regulate. Others argue the sites, by allowing suicidal people to share their concerns, prevent more deaths than they facilitate.

Other experts suggest the Japanese are influenced by a traditional reverence of suicide.

In feudal Japan, ritual suicide was considered an honorable death under the samurai warrior ethic. "Chushingura," a saga about 47 loyal samurai who avenged their master's death and then committed mass suicide in 18th century Japan, has been made into countless movies and TV dramas.

"Japanese see suicide as tragic, yet beautiful or somehow sincere," said Usui, adding that was perhaps why so many used charcoal to die.

Through Internet chat sites, "young Japanese have learned asphyxia doesn't damage the body, he said. "They think it allows them to die beautifully."