{"id":12079,"date":"2007-02-08T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-08T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2007\/02\/08\/hindu-christian-and-muslim-leaders-speak-out-about-suicide-on-reunion-island\/"},"modified":"2007-02-08T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-08T12:00:00","slug":"hindu-christian-and-muslim-leaders-speak-out-about-suicide-on-reunion-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2007\/02\/08\/hindu-christian-and-muslim-leaders-speak-out-about-suicide-on-reunion-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindu, Christian and Muslim Leaders Speak Out About Suicide on Reunion Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.clicanoo.com\/article.php3?id_article=148592\">www.clicanoo.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">REUNION, FRANCE, February 7, 2007: (HPI note: translated from the original French. The first paragraph is an introduction by the author.) With a suicide case every 40 minutes and more than 10,000 deaths every year, France is one of the industrialized countries largely affected by this phenomenon. A national debate this week calls for an urgent need to openly discuss the issue. Representatives of the major religions of Reunion Island, a  French Territory outer island,  express themselves on this taboo.<\/p>\n<p>More than 100 cases and 3,000 attempts are officially registered each year in Reunion Island (off the southwest coast of Mauritius). According to Pierre Rey, president of S.O.S Solitude, &#8220;Because he feels bad, the victim seldom leaves behind an explanation for his suicidal act.&#8221; Religious leaders, looked upon as saviors, agree to speak about suicide. A Catholic bishop said that suicide was against the church&#8217;s teachings, but, in recognition of the psychological problems involved, they did not any longer call those who committed suicide &#8220;bad Christians.&#8221; The Bhagatte Imam at the mosque of Saint-Denis said, &#8220;Suicide is strictly prohibited&#8221; in Islam. <\/p>\n<p>Hindus adopt quite another approach on the issue. &#8220;In Hinduism, the final point does not exist,&#8221; explains Swami Premananda, of the Puri Order and manager of the &#8220;Maison de l&#8217;Inde.&#8221; Tamils here believe in reincarnation. But to kill the body is like refusing &#8220;to sit for an  examination which we are expected to pass.&#8221; This is not the solution to a problem but, on the contrary, &#8220;The person simply amplifies his sufferings,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;Very often those prone to suicides knock at our door with questions about their existence in this lifetime. At such calls for help, the manager of Saint-Louis Hindu Asram provides practical solutions. &#8220;When we learn that the person is overburdened with debts, for example, we offer a free loan, a cash gift or we pay the school fees of the children.&#8221; He considers that such pragmatic solutions as an eternal duty and it is an opportunity to allow others know who they are at the ashram.&#8221;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.clicanoo.com REUNION, FRANCE, February 7, 2007: (HPI note: translated from the original French. The first paragraph is an introduction by,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}