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Uproar over 'suicide tourism'
09/11/2007 14:04 - (SA)
William French
Geneva - A Swiss assisted suicide association is helping people die in anonymous hotel rooms and even rental vans amid renewed controversy over liberal laws in Switzerland and so-called "suicide tourism".
The association, Dignitas, has gained notoriety in recent years by offering assisted suicide to foreign visitors, mainly terminally-ill people, allowing them to take advantage of relatively permissive laws in Switzerland compared to European neighbours.
In the latest case to spark media and political ire at home and abroad, two German men were helped to their deaths last week in a van in a muddy lay-by in the small town of Maur, near Zurich.
The two men, aged 50 and 65 respectively, committed suicide within two days of each other in the same parking area.
"It shows a lack of respect" for the community to end someone's life in such circumstances, local official Markus Gossweiler told AFP.
But as "passive" assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, no action can be brought against Dignitas no matter where the incident took place, said Joerg Vollenweider, spokesperson for the local prosecutor's office.
Under Swiss law, a terminally-ill person may be given "passive" assistance to suicide, such as being supplied with a lethal dose of a drug, provided it is not done for selfish motives or for gain.
Active assistance, including helping the person to take the drug or administering it, is forbidden.
The Maur case has also provoked uproar in Germany from political and religious leaders, with Dignitas singled out for criticism of its "aggressive strategy".
Bavarian Justice Minister Beate Merk said it was "unacceptable to find death in a car park", and criticised the "aggressive strategy" of Dignitas, which she said was "spreading its reach in Germany".
Growing distaste
The group and its founder, Ludwig Minelli, have been increasingly harried in Switzerland amid growing distaste for their methods.
Since 1998, Dignitas operated out of an apartment in Zurich, but was obliged to leave earlier this year, reportedly after neighbours expressed growing alarm about the number of coffins seen in the street.
Dignitas was later forced to stop its activities in a nearby dormitory town after local residents took legal action.
In September, a Swiss hotelier said he was planning legal action after the group helped a man end his life in one of his hotel rooms.
"It's a disgrace," the owner told weekly newspaper SonntagsBlick, which gave his name only as Alexander M.
The association's claims that it provides its clients with a dignified and painless death have also been disputed.
In January, Zurich's SonntagsZeitung newspaper reported that a 43-year-old German woman with a brain tumour cried out in pain for four minutes after taking a fatal dose of poison prepared by the organisation in November 2006.
She had cried out: "It's burning. I'm burning", friends who accompanied her told the newspaper.
She then fell into a coma but it took another 38 minutes before she was pronounced dead, the paper said.
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