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This is an article on the ritualistic suicide practice. For the record company, see Self Immolation.

Look up self-immolation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Self-immolation is often used to refer to suicide by fire. The Latin-based English word immolate, which for centuries was rarely used, means sacrifice, without any reference to burning, so more generally self-immolation means suicide without specifying the method.^[1][2] The practice is also called bonzo because Buddhist monks self-immolated in protest of the Vietnamese regime in 1963. It was Western media coverage of the fiery Vietnamese suicides that introduced the word "self-immolation" to a wide English-speaking audience and gave it a strong association with fire. In English literature prior to the mid-20th century, Buddhist monks were often referred to by the term bonze, particularly when describing monks from East Asia and French Indochina. This term is derived via Portuguese and French from the Japanese word bonsō for a priest or monk, and has become less common in modern literature.

Contents 1 History 1.1 1970's 1.2 1980's 1.3 1990's 1.4 2000's 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

[edit] History

Self-immolation is tolerated by Mahayana Buddhism and Hinduism, and it has been practiced for many centuries, especially in India, for various reasons, including Sati, political protest, devotion, and renouncement. Certain warrior cultures, such as in the Charans and Rajputs, also practiced self-immolation.

During the Great Schism of the Russian Church, entire villages of Old Believers burned themselves to death in an act known as "fire baptism". Scattered instances of self-immolation have also been recorded by the Jesuit priests of France in the early 1600s. Their practice of this was not intended to be fatal, though. They would burn certain parts of their bodies (limbs such as the forearm, the thigh) to signify the pain Jesus endured while upon the cross. ^[3]

A number of Buddhist monks (including Thích Quảng Đức, pictured) self-immolated in protest of the discriminatory treatment endured by Buddhists under the authoritarian administration of President Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam — even though violence against oneself is prohibited by most interpretations of Buddhist doctrine. The picture of the burning monk was used by the rock band Rage Against The Machine as a cover for their debut album.

These events spawned a large number of self-immolations in protest to the Vietnam War.

[edit] 1970's

Czech students Jan Palach and Jan Zajíc and Czech businessman Evžen Plocek performed self-immolation in 1969 to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia of August 1968. Polish philosopher Ryszard Siwiec did the same in September 1968 in Warsaw to protest against the involvement of Polish troops in this invasion.

Sándor Bauer and Marton Moyses were Hungarians who committed self-immolation as a political protest respectively against the Hungarian and Romanian communist regimes in 1969-1970.

University of California, San Diego student George Winne Jr., protesting the Vietnam War, self-immolated on May 10, 1970 at the university's Revelle Plaza before dying the next day.

In 1970, Kostas Georgakis a Greek Geology student at the University of Genoa, set himself on fire in protest of the oppressive Greek military junta of 1967-1974.

In 1972 Romas Kalanta a Lithuanian dissitent set himself on fire in protest against Soviet Union.

Lutheran pastor Oskar Brüsewitz killed himself by self-immolation August 22, 1976, protesting the East German communist regime.

Crimean Tatar named Musa Mamut set himself on fire in protest against violations of the individual rights of the Crimean Tatars by Soviet regime. He lived for five days, dying from his burns on June 28, 1978. Before dying, he is reported to have said, “I feel the pain of every Tatar who is not allowed to return to his Crimean homeland.”

[edit] 1980's

Artin Penik, a Turkish-Armenian set himself on fire protesting the 1982 ASALA attack at Esenboğa International Airport in which they opened fire on travellers in a crowded waiting room.

Sebastián Acevedo was a Chilean miner who committed self-immolation on November 1983 as a protest against the kidnapping of his children by the Chilean police during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet^[4].

In April 1989, Taiwanese activist Cheng Nan-jung set his office on fire when police came to arrest him on the charge of insurrection.^[5] The police blocked his funeral processions in the following month, at which time another activist, Chan I-hua, self-immolated in protest.^[6]

[edit] 1990's

In 1990, Rajiv Goswami of Delhi University attempted self immolation against Prime Minister V.P. Singh's implementation of the Mandal Commission laws for Affirmative Action (reservation) recommendations. ^{[7] [8]}

On April 29, 1993, Graham Bamford doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in front the British House of Commons in London. He was attempting to draw attention to atrocities committed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina particularly the Ahmići massacre.

Kathy Change was a West Philadelphian performance artist and activist who killed herself in an act of self-immolation on the University of Pennsylvania campus in 1996.

Alfredo Ormando, an Italian writer, burned himself alive in Saint Peter's Square, in Vatican City on 13 January 1998, in protest against the Roman Catholic Church's policy of condemning homosexual acts as sinful.

[edit] 2000's

In April 2001, Shahraz Kayani, a Pakistani refugee settled in Australia set himself alight on the steps of Parliament House, Canberra. Dying days later in hospital, he was protesting against the refusal of the government to grant the entry of his wife and daughters into Australia, one of whom suffered from Cerebral Palsy.^[9]

In 2001 a group of people self-immolated in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, known as the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident. China Central Television broadcast the event nationally on Chinese new year and claimed the immolators were practitioners of the Falun Gong. Falun Gong supporters point to inconsistencies in state media reports and maintain it was setup by the Chinese government to persecute the group.^[10]

Malachi Ritscher was a Chicago musician and anti-war protester who committed suicide in 2006 by self-immolation as a political protest against the War in Iraq.

In 2008 Son Jong Hoon attempted self-immolation to halt the Olympic torch; however, he was intercepted by police before he could set fire to himself.

On August 9, 2008, Dean Lorenzo Turnbull Jr. of Waldorf, Maryland committed suicide by setting his house on fire and refusing to leave.^[11]

On October 1, 2008, the indigenous Mexican leader Ramiro Guillén Tapia attempted self-immolation during an act of protest against the local government in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. He died the day after.

On October 30, 2008, a former staff member of the University of Washington self-immolated at the campus's Red Square. He was 61 years old.^[12]

On Halloween night, October 31, 2008, the body of University of Rochester sophomore Kurt Scheele was found scorched beyond recognition in a remote area of Mt. Hope Cemetery beside a gas can and a book bag after security personnel reported a fire. He was apparently a victim of self-immolation. ^[13]

On November 11, 2008, Liu Bai-yan self-immolated at Taipei Liberty Square in Taiwan. The 80-year-old former-Kuomintang member was unsatisfied with police mistreatment and the government's attitude during the visit by China's Chen Yunlin.^[14]

On February 12, 2009, a 40 year-old man set himself on fire with gasoline outside the Harry Hayes building in downtown Calgary, resulting in second-degree burns to 40 percent of his body.^[15]

2009 has seen several incidences of self-immolation in solidarity with Tamils in Sri Lanka, including the self-immolation of Murukathasan in front of the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) in Switzerland.^[16] Self-immolation of Muthukumar, happened on 29 January 2009 when one K. Muthukumar of Tamil Nadu, India self immolated or killed himself by burning to protest against the alleged killing of minority Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka as part of the Sri Lankan civil war. Before his death, he distributed a 4-page statement in Tamil language protesting the deaths of Sri Lankan Tamils.^[17]

[edit] See also

• Hunger strike
• Charans, a caste in India known for ever-readiness to perform self-immolation
• Sati, an old custom in which a Hindu widow would immolate herself on the funeral pyre of her husband
• Suicide methods
• Self-immolation of Muthukumar

[edit] References

• The Copycat Effect. New York: Paraview Pocket-Simon and Schuster, 2004, ISBN 0743482239

[edit] External links

• Mumbai: Protesting Tibetan attempts self-immolation
• Afghan women seek death by fire