A school in western Siberia has been fined for shocking children with a hostage-taking simulation during class, the Kommersant business daily reported Friday.
A national scandal erupted last month when footage showed fifth-graders cowering under their desks as masked men stormed their classroom. The school later explained that it staged the act to mark Russia’s day of solidarity in the fight against terrorism, which was established in the wake of the Beslan school siege.
Prosecutors in the Tyumen region town of Ishim told Kommersant the school was found guilty of violating the children’s right to education.
The school principal was fined 10,000 rubles ($130) and the school itself 50,000 rubles ($650), it reported. The vice principal and the health and safety teacher during whose class the incident occurred, as well as Ishim’s deputy education chief, were merely reprimanded.
Kommersant reported earlier that prosecutors had also warned the head of Ishim in connection with the incident.
Regional education authorities have said that the school warned students that “strangers” would be attending the health and safety lesson that day. Most students were said to be unfazed by the incident, though at least one student sought medical assistance afterward.
Kommersant reported that cadets played the role of “terrorists” during the Sept. 4 class. Following the simulation, regional education authorities tightened controls to avoid similar incidents in the future.
This is at least the second known hostage-taking simulation dedicated to the September 2004 Beslan school siege that led to the deaths of over 300 adult and child hostages.
In 2018, National Guard troops and Cossacks staged a hostage-taking and releasing operation in front of applauding parents in the Yekaterinburg region.
Siberian Cop Murders Transgender Girlfriend
A young police officer has allegedly strangled his transgender girlfriend to death in Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk, media reported Tuesday.
Investigators said they have detained a 20-year-old traffic officer on suspicion of killing and disposing of the 24-year-old victim’s body. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 15 years if found guilty of murder.
The local ngs.ru news website identified the victim as Viktoria Basakovskaya, a transgender woman whose passport still classified her as male.
An unnamed law enforcement source told ngs.ru earlier that the suspect, identified as Denis K., allegedly strangled Basakovskaya out of jealousy.
The Podyom news website said it spoke to the suspect’s sister, who confirmed that Denis K. and Basakovskaya were in a relationship.
The suspect was said to have choked Basakovskaya to death on Oct. 5 and then reported her missing before confessing and leading police to the scene of the crime. He has since been dismissed from the police force, according to the reports.
Basakovskaya’s murder comes amid a rise in the number of hate crimes against members of Russia’s LGBT community seen in recent years. The trend culminated with the stabbing death of LGBT activist Yelena Grigoriyeva in July 2019 after her personal details were leaked in an anti-LGBT group’s “death list.”
On Monday, a St. Petersburg court found 29-year-old Alexei Volnyanko guilty of Grigoriyeva’s murder and sentenced him to eight years in prison. The court said Volnyanko, who had confessed to the murder, acted out of “sudden hostility” instead of anti-LGBT sentiment.
The Russian LGBT Network advocacy group reacted to Basakovskaya’s murder via Twitter, saying “we grieve as a community and remind readers that Trans Lives Matter.”
