Suicide pact

A suicide pact is an agreed plan between two or more individuals to commit suicide. The plan may be to die together, or separately and closely timed. A suicide pact is an agreed plan between two or more individuals to commit suicide. The plan may be to die together, or separately and closely timed. Suicide pacts are an important concept in the study of suicide, and have occurred throughout history, as well as in fiction. An example of this is the suicide pact between Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and Baroness Mary Vetsera. Suicide pacts are sometimes contrasted with mass suicides, understood as incidents in which a larger number of people kill themselves together for the same ideological reason, often within a religious, political, military or paramilitary context. 'Suicide pact' tends to connote small groups and non-ideological motivations, as do bonding as married or romantic partners, as family members or friends, or even as criminal partners. In England and Wales, suicide pact is a partial defense, under section 4 of the Homicide Act 1957, which reduces murder to manslaughter. In Northern Ireland, this defense is created by section 14 of the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 (c. 20) (N.I.). One of the first internet suicides in Israel occurred in 1997, when Eran Aderet, a 19-year-old soldier, died after expressing his desire to commit suicide online, and received detailed instructions on how to accomplish this with an M16 rifle in his possession. Following this case, in 1999, a new Israeli association, SAHAR, sought to prevent suicide by providing supportive conversations and referrals to relevant resources. In 2005, following an increase in the number of internet suicide cases, the police established a special unit which consists of six policemen and specializes in helping people who confess online to wanting to commit suicide. The unit keeps in contact with forum moderators, who are asked to look out for posts from suicidal users. About 200 cases are detected each year, preventing dozens of suicides. Following the success of the Israeli model, similar units have been founded in Sweden, Germany and France. Although the majority of such internet-related suicide pacts have occurred in Japan (where it takes the name of netto shinjū, ネット心中), similar incidents have also been reported from other countries including China, South Korea, Germany, Australia, Norway, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, and Sweden. The first known Internet-related suicide pact occurred in Japan in October 2000, with a later February 2003 incident, involving a young man and two young women, that 'became a landmark incident of Internet suicide pacts in Japan due to heavy media coverage'. Despite the alarmed response of the media, Internet-connected suicide pacts are still relatively rare. Even in Japan, where most of such pacts have occurred, they still represent only 2% of all group suicide-pacts, and less than 0.01% of all suicides combined. However, they have been increasing in the country: 34 deaths from such pacts occurred in 2003; at least 50 are estimated to have occurred in 2004; and 91 deaths occurred in 2005. One notable example would be Hiroshi Maeue, who on March 28, 2007, was sentenced to death by hanging, alleged to have murdered three participants in a suicide pact.