RUSSIA: Teacher's beating by students captured on video

Record ID: 353191

  • Title: RUSSIA: Teacher's beating by students captured on video
  • Date: 26th March 2010
  • Summary: SHELEKHOV, IRKUTSK REGION, RUSSIA (MARCH 23, 2010) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) BOARD OF HONOUR AT SCHOOL VARIOUS OF PORTRAIT OF TEACHER VALENTINA LEONIDOVA AS A YOUNGER WOMAN TEACHERS LOOKING AT BOARD SCHOOL TROPHY CABINET EXTERIOR OF SHELEKHOV COMMISSION FOR JUVENILE AFFAIRS SIGN READING "COMMISSION FOR JUVENILE AFFAIRS, SHELEKHOV.' (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) COMMISSION
  • Embargoed: 10th April 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVABHA9UEELRD9YL2LG1EIXV2TVQ
  • Story Text: Authorities in Russia's Irkutsk region are investigating after students apparently videoed beatings of an elderly teacher and posted them on the internet.
    Russian law enforcement agencies are looking into an incident in east Siberia's town of Shelekhov in the Irkutsk Region after videos posted on the web apparently showed high school students beating up an elderly teacher during physical education classes.
    Russian TV channels showed the amateur video scenes on news reports on Wednesday (March 24) . The amateur footage was made available to journalists by the local education authority.
    Valentina Leonidova, aged 73, apparently suffers from sclerosis and said she could not remember the attacks. One section of video shows the students pushing the teacher down and kicking her.
    The students filmed the violent scenes on a mobile phone and posted the home made video, with a musical soundtrack, on the web. They gave the teacher a nickname 'Wafer' and named the clip 'Serega against Wafer'. Serega is thought to be one of the students. The video clipwith the caption "Serega wins".
    Olga Skrokhodova, head of Shelekhov District Education and Youth Department said: "A lack of proper control meant just half of all children attended physical education classes, every second Saturday, this is where the feeling of impunity (among students) at this school comes from," said As soon as the story gained publicity through journalists, the school director was fired. Local authorities in charge of the supervision of minors in Shelekhov have promised to investigate the case.
    "All (the) children are from good families and have no records in our commission's files," said Shelekhov Commission for Juvenile Affairs officer, Nina Andreyeva.
    Some teachers from School Number One in Shelekhov said anonymously they had long known about the bullying, but that the school director banned them from telling anyone. Others insisted they had known nothing about the violence against their colleague.
    "I would have reacted to this for sure and every one of us teachers here would have done the same. We simply didn't know anything about it, we had no notion what was going on there," said literature teacher Larisa Zagrabyan.
    The school is now closed for spring holidays, and parents have refused to allow journalists access to any of the students who are suspected of carrying out the beatings and filming the incidents.
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