Prague
A young man doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square last week, in a gruesome suicide that copied a famous Cold War protest. In 1969, 22-year-old Jan Palach killed himself in that way and on that site to protest the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. But last week’s self-immolation, by 19-year-old Zdenek Adamec, appeared to be motivated more by personal depression. “I am another victim of the so-called democratic system, where not the people decide, but money and power,” Adamec said in a note left at the scene. “All my life I encountered problems I was unable to cope with. I cannot go on.” Horrified passersby threw their coats over the burning boy to smother the flames, but he died at the scene.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Will AI kill the smartphone?In The Spotlight OpenAI and Meta want to unseat the ‘Lennon and McCartney’ of the gadget era
-
Must-see bookshops around the UKThe Week Recommends Lose yourself in beautiful surroundings, whiling away the hours looking for a good book
-
A Nipah virus outbreak in India has brought back Covid-era surveillanceUnder the radar The disease can spread through animals and humans
