The death of Mr. Koizumi after internet trouble

It is bad news. Iwate assemblyman died in a suspected suicide.

The Mainichi: Iwate assemblyman dead in suspected suicide after Internet drubbing

Mr. Mitsuo Koizumi was a politician in Iwate prefecture.
One day, he was angered at the service he was offered in Iwate Central Hospital. He felt humiliated as he was called with a patient number than his own name. He was so angry that he immediately went home without paying the fee for medical services.

How about his behavior?
As a physician, I think it is a national trend not to call a name of a patient at a hall in a hospital, because some patients are annoyed to be informed their names to other patients. Does a politician want to be known as a patient to others? To be honest, I did not understand his anger.

However, he seemed not to be able to calm himself down. He wrote this trouble on his official blog.
It is not surprising that his entry was heavily criticized. Some people began to demand Mr. Koizumi to resign the post of assemblyman. At last, Mr. Koizumi officially apologized. He held a press conference, which was broadcasted all over Japan. His blog was closed.

Japan Crush: Assemblyman’s Blog Rant Against Hospital Amuses Netizens

Soon after the sequential events, he was dead.

A lot of people made a comment on the web about this. Some of them blamed Mr. Koizumi cruelly. Others blamed the excessive trend of criticism. It is bad taste that a Togetter page composed of Tweets wishing his death was created after his death.

Mr. Tatsuya Kurosaka, a consultant claimed in his blog that (suspected) suicide of Mr. Koizumi was caused by media scrum overrunning him. He was afraid that internet argument influenced the real world with an extremely bad way.

To hear that Iwate assemblyman committed suicide after an internet burning case (in Japanese)

I am also a person who criticized the behavior of Mr. Koizumi. As far as reading his entry, his act was quite rude, I think, even now. I made my tweet about this. I did not want his death, neither wrote so. It was almost impossible Mr. Koizumi saw my tweet. Nonetheless, I feel unstable now.

I dare not to write my opinion about the mental state of Mr. Koizumi or his critics. Several politicians or other famous people committed suicide in Japan. To be fearful, suicide is not far from our daily life.


(*sequel)