Seventh self-immolation in less than two months?
Police in the Moravian town of Sumperk announced on Monday that the badly-burnt body of a man had been discovered near the town's graveyard. They're still trying to identify the man, and also ascertain exactly how he died, but all the evidence suggests he burnt himself to death. If confirmed, this would be the seventh case of self-immolation in less than two months - an extraordinary statistic. Rob Cameron has been following the story and joins me now in the studio - Rob, what do we know about this latest case?
"Well all we know is what the police have told us - on Friday a passer-by noticed what appeared to be a body lying near the town cemetery in Sumperk. The body belonged to a man, and was found lying on its back. Next to the body there were some matches, some cigarette ends, and an empty bottle of toluene, which is a highly flammable chemical sometimes inhaled by glue-sniffers. The police are still trying to ascertain the cause of death, but it's reasonable to suspect that either he was murdered, or he set himself alight by accident, or - and this seems much more probable - he committed suicide."
Right, and if that is confirmed, this would be the latest in a series of self-immolations.
Is there any evidence to suggest these cases are linked in any way?
"None at all. The first case I mentioned there - 19-year-old student Zdenek Adamec - said he was following in the footsteps of Jan Palach, the student who set himself alight on Wenceslas Square in 1969 as a protest against public apathy following the Soviet invasion. Zdenek Adamec wrote in a suicide note that he was a Palach for the 21st century, saying he was protesting against the evils of the modern world. That led some to describe his death as political. But it later emerged that he was a highly introverted and confused young man, and he was also being prosecuted - wrongly in his opinion - by the police, something he seemed very upset about."
Right, what about the other cases - were they also introverted young men, students like Zdenek Adamec?
"No. Of the six that followed, most were men, that's true: there was just one woman. But several of the men were much older: one was in his forties; he burnt himself to death after spending the evening in the pub. The only link seems to be that they were all suffering from serious depression or mental illness. So it seems that these vulnerable, deeply unhappy people have been 'inspired' - for want of a better word - by Zdenek Adamec, in the same way as Adamec was 'inspired' by Jan Palach."
