Dignitas founder dies by assisted suicide aged 92, group says

The founder of Swiss right-to-die organization Dignitas died by assisted suicide, the group announced.

Ludwig Minelli, 92, died on Saturday, days shy of his 93rd birthday.

The group paid tribute to Minelli, saying that he “lived a life based on freedom of choice, self-determination and human rights.”

Minelli founded Dignitas in 1998 and has helped kill thousands of people since then.

In recent years, some countries have changed their stance on assisted dying, with Australia, Canada and New Zealand introducing legislation. The UK House of Lords is currently debating this issue. assisted dying law.

Critics of legalization say disabled and vulnerable people could be forced to end their lives.

Many of the people Dignitas helps are people who travel to Switzerland because assisted dying is not allowed in their home country.

Throughout his life, Minelli campaigned passionately for the right to die, giving Dignitas the motto “dignity in life, dignity in death”.

Inside A 2010 interview with the BBCHe said: “I believe that we must fight to realize the last human right in our societies. And the last human right is the right to decide for oneself and the ability to achieve this goal without risk and pain.”

Minelli began her career as a journalist as a reporter for the German news magazine Der Spiegel, before studying law and becoming interested in human rights.

After founding Dignitas, he faced numerous legal challenges and made several successful appeals to the Swiss supreme court.

Dignitas said in a statement that its work had a lasting impact, pointing to a 2011 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights; This decision confirmed the right of a person capable of judgment to decide the manner and time of his or her own end of life.

Euthanasia, the administration of a lethal drug by a doctor to deliberately end a person’s life in order to relieve suffering, is illegal in Switzerland.

But assisted death, where a person receives lethal drugs from a medical doctor and then administers them themselves, has been legal for decades.

In a statement, Dignitas said it would “continue to manage and develop the association, in the spirit of its founder, as a professional and combative international organization for the freedom of self-determination and choice in life and at the end of life.”

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