while in a martyrdom operation a person is killed as a pure act. This attitude is not universally held by all Muslim clerics. Spies have carried suicide pills to use when captured, partly to avoid the misery of captivity, but also to avoid being forced to disclose secrets. For the latter reason, spies may even have orders to kill themselves if captured – for example, Gary Powers had a suicide pill, but did not use it when he was captured. Social protest Slave suicide in the United States before the American Civil War has been seen as a social protest. Some slaves were portrayed by abolitionist writers, such as William Lloyd Garrison, as those that ended their lives in response to the hypocrisy of the American Constitution. Abolitionists have had differing views on slave suicide. Many cases were published in hope of convincing the public that slaves were protesting the slave society by ending their lives. In the 1960s, Buddhist monks, most notably Thích Quảng Đức, in South Vietnam gained Western praise in their protests against President Ngô Đình Diệm by burning themselves to death. Similar events were reported in central Europe, such as Jan Palach and Ryszard Siwiec following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1970 Greek geology student Kostas Georgakis burned himself to death in Genoa, Italy to protest against the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. During the Cultural Revolution in China (1966–1976), numerous publicly known figures, especially intellectuals and writers, are reported to have died by suicide, typically to escape persecution, typically at the hands of the Red Guards. Some, or perhaps many, of these reported suicides are suspected by many observers to have, in fact, not been voluntary but instead the result of mistreatment. Some reported suicides include famed writer Lao She, among the best-known 20th-century Chinese writers, and journalist Fan Changjiang. Eliyahu Rips, who studied mathematics in the Latvian University, on April 13, 1969 attempted self-immolation at the Freedom Monument in Riga in order to protest against the Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia. See also Philosophical views of suicide Religious views of suicide List of famous suicides References Further reading Bähr, Andreas. "Between “Self-Murder” and “Suicide”: The Modern Etymology of Self-Killing." Journal of Social History 46.3 (2013): 620-632. Argues Suicide” is a modern concept--emerging in English in 1650s and in French and Spanish in late 18th century. Crocker, Lester G. "The discussion of suicide