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A network of "suicide gurus" who use the internet to advise people how to kill themselves has been exposed. They are blamed for prompting depressed and vulnerable youngsters to take their own lives.One, an American satanist who boasts of writing a guide to the subject, says: "What's the problem with ending your life via suicide? "Another is a "pro-choice" Dutch writer whose website includes detailed accounts of dozens of suicide methods. Campaigners have uncovered 29 "internet suicides" in Britain since 2001, including two new cases reported this weekend. The findings follow the cluster of suicides among young people in Bridgend, where a coroner is now re-examining nine deaths on top of 16 suspected suicides under investigation. It emerged on Friday that another two young people from the Welsh town had been found hanged. Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, and his cousin Kelly Stephenson, 20, were both members of a social networking website. Among the most notorious suicide websites, which The Sunday Telegraph has decided not to name to avoid encouraging their use, are two discussion forums, or "chatrooms", in which users offer advice on how to end one's life. In some cases, people with suicidal feelings have been encouraged to take their own lives rather than to seek professional advice.In a posting on one of the sites last week, a desperate user wanting to know how to hang himself was directed, by another correspondent, to a website containing drawings of knots and nooses.Internet service providers and search engines like Google and Yahoo say they cannot block these websites and forums unless they are made illegal by the Government.One of the most notorious figures on the internet suicide scene is Nagasiva Yronwode, a self-confessed satanist who runs a shop selling occult books and charms in the small Californian town of Forestville, north of San Francisco.Yronwode, 46,(picture left above) describes himself as the "outreach director" for an extremist cult called the Church of Euthanasia, which advocates suicide as a means of saving the world from the effects of overpopulation.Writing under the name Boboroshi, he has edited a suicide guide, which details various methods. Yronwode's own website contains links to online suicide discussion boards and forums.He told this newspaper: "The guide is there to make it easier for people who opt for suicide to carry it out. The purpose of my information is empowerment for competent human beings who have an interest in ending their lives. What's the problem with that?"I haven't seen any evidence that any person has acted as a result of reading the guide. But, of course, people who have an interest in ending their lives may well seek out information that relates to suicide and in some cases that leads them to end their lives."Yronwode rejected arguments that he was responsible for the deaths of suicide victims."I'm not the protector of these troubled youths," he said. "Their parents are the people who made them troubled. They are responsible for them. They should look at their living conditions, genetic features and local conditions which might lead them to take their own lives. Everything else is a distraction......"To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
