Following Saddam's Execution

Following Saddam's execution there was this story from Turkey...

"A 12-year-old died by hanging himself from the ceiling of his home, a hospital said Wednesday, and family members said the boy was copying Saddam Hussein's execution. It was the second death of a youngster blamed on televised images of the deposed Iraqi dictator's Dec. 30 execution. 30. A 10-year-old boy in Houston died Sunday by hanging himself from a bunk bed after watching news reports of the execution.

A hospital official in the southeastern province of Mus said Alisen Akti was dead on arrival at a hospital. The boy died of asphyxiation after apparently hanging himself, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to journalists. RadiKal newspaper quoted the boy's father as saying that the youngster had been affected by television images of Saddam's execution. "What kind of a problem could a 12-year-old have to want to kill himself?" Radikal quoted Esat Akti as saying.

"After watching Saddam's execution he was constantly asking 'How was Saddam killed?' and 'Did he suffer?'" Akti said. "These television images are responsible for my son's death."

In Yemen, a man apparently committed suicide when he heard the news. And in Morocco, a husband and wife got in a quarrel over whether the hanging was justified. The woman defended the execution saying that Saddam deserved to die. Her husband was so enraged he took a butcher knife and stabbed her to death. Meanwhile, crowds flow through the streets of large cities from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, caught up in the notion that here was a martyr.