Assisted suicide organisation opens branch in Germany

The decision by Dignitas, the Swiss assisted suicide organisation, to open their first office abroad in Hanover, Lower Saxony, in September this year has provoked fierce controversy in Germany. The branch will provide information and advice to people wanting to commit suicide but will not actually provide any drugs for the purpose, unlike the organisation's head office in Switzerland.

Dignitas was launched in 1998 by former journalist and lawyer Ludwig Minelli, aged 73, and is based in Zurich. It claims to have helped more than 450 terminally ill people to commit suicide, most of them travelling from Germany and other countries to Switzerland where assisted suicide is legal. Active …