A a 77-year-old retired pharmacist shot himself in the head Wednesday in central Athens, drawing an emotional response from Greeks who flooded the area in a spontaneous anti-austerity protest in a nation on the brink of economic collapse.
A woman places a flowers as others stand at the site where an elderly man fatally shot himself at Athens' main Syntagma square, on Wednesday, April 4, 2012. The Greek pensioner picked the busiest public area in Athens to shoot himself dead on Wednesday, leaving a note which police said linked his suicide with the country's acute financial woes. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) The victim, whose name has not been released, shot himself outside the parliament building today. His suicide note reportedly said, "I have no other way to react apart from finding a dignified end before I start sifting through garbage for food."Since the suicide, activists and opponents of austerity measures, who have been fighting massive cuts to Greece's economy for more than a year, came out to protest the economic injustices that are rampant in their nation. Some of the more than 1,500 protesters who took to the public square in Athens today, said, "This was not suicide - it was murder committed by the state." Suicide rates have skyrocketed in Greece since the country starting making excessive salary and pension cuts.
The Arab Spring is largely cited as having been sparked by the death of a food vendor in Tunisia, who was protesting similar economic injustices as today's victim.
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