March 14, 2006
Happy Slapping hits Germany
According to The Telegraph, "happy slapping", "Lustiges Draufschlagen" or "Fröhliches Schlagen" as it has variously come to be known, is becoming a real problem in playgrounds across German schools.
Excerpts:
... Some of the most recent attacks are also the most disturbing.
At the Dag Hammarskjöld school in the southern district of Tempelhof last Tuesday a 15-year-old girl was attacked by 15 youths on her way home because she had laughed at a school mate during a lesson. They beat her up and filmed the attack which was discovered by police after her mother complained.
In the eastern district of Friedrichshain a large group of youths attacked passers-by with sticks and beer bottles.
And in the case that has come to be known as the "Big Rabbit", rival pupils from schools in the neighbouring districts of Kreuzberg and Neukölln laid into each other in a local park and filmed the action.
Meanwhile there is evidence that the phenomenon is taking on ever more disturbing features after police raided a school in Bavaria following a parental tip-off and confiscated 200 phones.
On a large number of them they found violent videos, Nazi propaganda and violent pornography on the phones of children as young as 12 who swapped the images during breaks or after school. "
Other than the UK, where the trend seems to have originated, happy slapping incidents have also been reported in Switzerland and Spain .
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