3 children hang themselves after seeing Saddam execution

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
I don't think parents should be expected to monitor their children 24/7. Doing so would be nearly impossible. And, most attempts would cause a rift between parent and child. Rather than monitoring, maybe parents should try to instill trust in their children by allowing them to be curious, with the parental guidence.

I agree that parents can not monitor their children 24/7 and that it is kind of not good idea, since kids need to grow without constant parental guidance. But the problem is, that kids do watch all kinds of terrible stuff on TV and on the internet, and do really witness 1500 murders before they are 12 years old. Then they go to play a game, which also involved 1500 murders. I am not against computers games - but, there is a line, when a child can be a witness to this kind of violence, and I sure was not allowed to watch certain movies at home when I was 9 or 10 years old, since my parents decided that it is not suitable for my age. Yet kids today can and do see all sorts of violence every where they go. Is this the peak of human evolution? How many movies are there about Love? How many video games are about Love? Sorry my Friend - Love does not sell very well these days - only Sex and Violence does. And if you look around, that is exactly what is on the news, on the television, in the cinema, in the games, on the internet.

Right. And, since the media is there, and the kids are going to watch it, it's better to be the type of parent who watches it with the children, rather than the type who catches their children, punishes them, and teaches the child to be more sneaky about it next time.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
Right. And, since the media is there, and the kids are going to watch it, it's better to be the type of parent who watches it with the children, rather than the type who catches their children, punishes them, and teaches the child to be more sneaky about it next time.

Agreed!

But can you show me how many parents are like that, who watch the news with their children and tell them what the hell is going on?

And since there are not much of them, and the kids are bombarded each and every day with sex and violence, this is what happens...

Sad, sad world we live in...

let me guess, its Bush's fault?

Why do you say that Payres?

If television did not have the power to influence behavior, then there would be precious little on television, since advertisers would put their money elsewhere.

The Indian girl, who was fifteen, actually committed suicide, according to the article, for political reasons, so I really wouldn't class that with the other acts.

The other two children couldn't rightfully said to have committed suicide, except in the most general sense, because it seems that they did not understand the consequences of their actions.

I'd say it's sad, but the fact is that kids see a whole lot of violent things on television and singling out the coverage of Saddam's hanging really doesn't make much sense because it is was a genuine and important news story.

"Jackass" is surely much more of a problem than one hanging of one murderous tyrant.

Originally posted by intrepid
May I ask how the parents can monitor what goes on in their houses when they aren't there?

- the kids shouldn't have been watching it. Period. The parents should have been there or had a baby sitter.

- the parents should have taught them previous to this about suicide/death, that it is final and that it is not for them to do.

- the oldest .. that teen girl .. was old enough to be out of her parents influence and to be more on her own at that point and to make some personal choices. Obviously, she made a bad one.

I hung myself when I was 5 or 6 ... Mom found me before it was too late.

WOW! Yes, you were fortunate. glad to know that you were okay. Probably gave your mom a serious fright!

Nobody I know in Iraq or Iran believes that was the real Saddam on TV.

Not even his wife or the Russians.

The older lookalike had bad teeth and a underbit, the real Saddam has an overbit and spent a million dollars on his pearly whites.

Funny how Saddam looked 20 years older in just 8 months as well.

I guess one of the richest and maddest men in the world wanted to play hide and seek in his own back yard and had time to colour his head but not his beard?

And seeing how Saddam hated beards I guess he changed his mind, it had nothing to do with the look alike not having a dimple in his chin.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
The other two children couldn't rightfully said to have committed suicide, except in the most general sense, because it seems that they did not understand the consequences of their actions.

Correct - they did NOT understand what they were doing. But remember when you were a kid, and you saw some stuff on the television or in the movies, and wanted to repeat it. I wanted to be an indian. And a ghostbuster. And a jedi. But I did not see a live hanging. When you are 9 or 10 years old, I think you are like a sponge - just taking all the information from the enviroment around you, as you can. The question is, if you can filter out all the Bad vibes at that age.

I'd say it's sad, but the fact is that kids see a whole lot of violent things on television and singling out the coverage of Saddam's hanging really doesn't make much sense because it is was a genuine and important news story.

Yes I agree they see all kinds of violence - most of it is in movies and tv-shows, and they know its kind of fake. But a live hanging is a little bit across the border of good taste. A hanging is like a snuff video - and I have seen an entire collection of this live recorded deaths, which is very illegal. And it made me really sick. And I was not 9 or 10. Snuff is not for kids! Period! Actually it is not for anyone - but dumb ass people do record it.

And I have just read there is ANOTHER short movie from Saddam's hanging - this time there are deep cuts on Saddams neck, as if somebody wanted to chop his head off.

"Jackass" is surely much more of a problem than one hanging of one murderous tyrant.

I find it disturbing that you think Jacka$$ is more troubeling then live television hanging. Nobody dies in Jacka$$ movies - it is all just a bunch of stunts and sick jokes; no death, just laughs. I personally found it sick and disturbing to see Saddam hang in this way, which only showed tha the current Iraqi goverment is not an inch better then the murderous tyrannt they hanged. Same shyeet. All of this just pops questions into my head, how come Pinochet died of old age? But that's another story...

Id say its just a case of natural selection. Heres a video that clearly shows the end result of a hanging. He died. If some kids were stupid enough to follow through with a "play" that they, themselves know will end in death then so be it.

Its a shame some kids are so stupid. Its a shame many adults are as well. Personally Id rather the stupid die as children, before they can grow up to make terrible decision that would harm others and not only themselves.

If my kid did it Im sure Id be torn up, wailing in the streets and jumping to blame anyone I could but the fact still remains my child has died by his own hand and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. We all rot in the same ground after all.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
Its a shame some kids are so stupid. Its a shame many adults are as well. Personally Id rather the stupid die as children, before they can grow up to make terrible decision that would harm others and not only themselves.

Sounds very Nazi - kind of like the Endlösung. I mean how can you say, that a stupid kid deserves to die, if he commits such an action - which was only reapeating something he saw on TV, which he should not have seen at that age!? Personally I find your reply sickening.

Originally posted by Souljah

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
Its a shame some kids are so stupid. Its a shame many adults are as well. Personally Id rather the stupid die as children, before they can grow up to make terrible decision that would harm others and not only themselves.

Sounds very Nazi - kind of like the Endlösung. I mean how can you say, that a stupid kid deserves to die, if he commits such an action - which was only reapeating something he saw on TV, which he should not have seen at that age!? Personally I find your reply sickening.

Thanks. And I find your attitude naive. Wanna hear how to fix Social Security? Euthanize the sick and elderly. Or we could simply let people control their own finances like we've all done for centuries. But hey, government knows best, right?

If you have inflated and unrealistic expectations of censorship, control and government oversight then you must expect the extreme measures that must be taken to ensure their success. Or, you let people live in freedom and let them experience the consequences of that freedom i.e. idiot kids hanging themselves because they saw something on TV. Looney Tunes never made me think I could defy gravity by not looking down. By the looks of it some 7 billion people were not affected by this.

Well there is more bad news:

Algerian children hang 12-year-old after watching Saddam execution

A group of Algerian schoolchildren hanged a 12-year-old classmate in a game imitating the execution of Saddam Hussein, a newspaper reported Monday, in the latest of a series of copycat hangings. The Algerian boy died two days after the ousted Iraqi leader was hanged on December 30, in the village of Oued Rihou in western Algeria, l'Authentique newspaper reported.

On January 3, a woman in the western Algerian coast town of Oran committed suicide by hurling herself from a window in her parents' third-floor apartment because she was "traumatized by images of the hanging," a member of her family said.

A 12-year-old Saudi boy used a chair and metal wire to hang himself from a door frame at his family's home in the city of Hafr al-Baten, near the border with Kuwait, Al-Hayat daily said.

Now that is frightning, when a group of children decides to hang their classmate.

Who to blame?

Apparently mimicking Saddam's hanging, several children around the world kill themselves

In Yemen, at least two young boys died and another was severely injured after they apparently imitated Saddam's death.

One of the cases involved a 13-year-old Yemeni junior high school student who hanged himself after watching Saddam's execution on television, a security official said.


Many family members and some experts have blamed the television and Internet images of the deposed Iraqi leader's hanging, some which show him dropping through the gallows floor and his dead body swinging at the end of a rope. The leaked videos, apparently taken with camera cell phones, drew international outrage over the way the execution was carried out.

Hisham Ramy, an associate professor of psychiatry at Ain Shams University in Cairo, said graphic videos can have a severe affect on children who don't yet understand the consequences of death and violence.

"They see how it's done, but they don't think it's horrific, and they're more likely to imitate it," he said.

But child psychologist Jasem Hajia in Kuwait City cautioned placing all the blame on video images. "This is extreme, and I think there were physiological disorders as well with the children," Hajia said.

Thank You doctor for explaining.

We need to learn a new way to perceive our world. If a parent knew their child had witnessed a murder in the streets, they might be sensitive to that area of the child’s well being. The parents know this event could be damaging. It’s hard to view television as damaging though… we’re so removed from it, it’s everywhere, it’s commonplace so much so that sometimes it loses the full breadth of its meaning.

So yes, a parent would know that it might be damaging for their child to see a man killed on the street, but to view it through a television set, it’s maybe not so clear as to how this child is affected by it. I am not saying we need censorship, and I’m not saying they were horrible parents, merely that we need to reconsider how to deal with this information age and being desensitized to the point we forget that children are either

a) still sensitive to it all, and thus deeply affected by something gruesome they may not have otherwise seen (the girl wanting to feel the pain)

Or, since children are already used to sooo much information and technology

b) so desensitized they don’t even view the act as real or dangerous (which seemed to be the case with at least one of the boys).