Australia’s leading euthanasia activist, Dr Philip Nitschke, is making a splash in a tour of the UK. There was an initial kerfuffle with immigration officials when he arrived at Heathrow, but he was released after a few hours on the condition that he leave the country within a week. He made a whistlestop tour beginning in the "Costa Geriatrica" in the southeast of England.

The hostility of the immigration authorities has made Nitschke reconsider his plans to relocate to the UK. Immigration officials "had a lot of material, like press cuttings and letters, from people who oppose us with fundamental Christian-based material," he said. "We might be forced to move to the US, which still has freedom of speech and increasingly looks like a less hostile environment."

Nitschke insisted to the UK media that he is not encouraging people to break the law -- even though he told audiences at his lectures he knows "hundreds of people" who have bought the lethal drug Nembutal in Mexico and "flown back to this country with no problem."

"When you look at developed nations, this is an issue of growing significance as baby-boomers age and want to have that control over the lives," he told Reuters. "We wait for decade after decade for politicians to act... but elderly folk really haven't got the time."

Dr Nitschke is a maverick who has not been welcomed by campaigners for legalised voluntary euthanasia in the UK. Debbie Purdy, a 47-year-old who has been testing the law for some time, described him as a "dangerous man". "It is against the law in this country to counsel, procure, aid or abet suicide, and he is clearly coming here to break that law," she said. ~ Reuters, May 7; Australian, May 4