Cretan pupils posed online with Nazi signs
Cretan teachers are spearheading an anti-racism drive after photographs uploaded onto the social networking site Facebook showed pupils from a secondary school in Akrotiri posing under symbols of far-right organizations. According to Dimitris Loupasakis, the head of the school in Hania prefecture, the discovery came months after rumors emerged of far-right «cells» in schools. «It’s a phenomenon that is spreading,» Loupasakis said, adding that primary schools were being targeted too «as younger children are politically naive.» Teachers asked pupils if they had been approached by individuals preaching extremism, prompting local far-right groups to write a blog entry accusing schools of persecuting children with nationalist leanings. Hania has been the scene of many far-right attacks this year, including the vandalization of a synagogue and an assault on a teacher, who had a swastika scratched into her hand.
