Pranked by an anti-Kremlin activist, a few schools in both Belarus and Russia received a fake official letter asking them to recommend children who should be sent to Soviet-era style re-education camps, with some turning in and doxing not just kids but parents.
The independent Russian news site Insider reported on the latest hoax perpetrated by the notorious Belarusian activist Vladislav Bokhan. Several Belarusian and Russian schools received a letter ostensibly from their regional authorities asking them to identify “potentially extremist” kids who should be sent to correctional camps that were currently under construction.
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At first, he received responses from schools that denied there were any unreliable children in their faculties. Bokhan interpreted this as indicative of a fear that if they “owned up” they would be held responsible for the presence of delinquents in their establishments.
He therefore followed up the original letter with “clarification” that indicated that the school would not suffer any blame and that behavior that deserved “re-education” included low grades, poor discipline, addiction to social networks, displaying attitudes that did not support the government (in Belarus) or President Vladimir Putin’s special military operation, the SVO (for Russians).
This second appeal was also met with statements from the Belarusian recipients that they had no such children. However, two Russian schools did reply.
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One response, from Lyceum No. 4 in Krasnogorsk, in the Moscow region identified one child who they felt fitted the bill.
The other, Gymnasium No. 45 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in Russia’s Far East produced an extensive list that not only included the names of disruptive children but also their parents, their jobs and addresses.
Insider then cited the head of the Teachers' Alliance, Daniil Ken, who suggested that schools both feared that they would be blamed for causing their pupils misbehavior, even though Bokhan’s letter said they would not be blamed, but also underlined that a “culture of denunciation” still existed in the two countries particularly among public sector employees.
He put this down to states that create an expectation of blame for those who do not report unreliable citizens while those who do may be suspected of sympathizing with those in opposition.
Ken thinks that this became worse following the start of the war in Ukraine where schools became the focus for pro-war propaganda involving families and pupils in demonstrations of support for the SVO.
An anonymous employee from one of the Russian schools involved told the Insider that they often receive orders “from above” that are carried out without hesitation by “intellectually challenged” education managers “… who don’t think at all [about such demands]… as they are so overwhelmed with work and are so accustomed to all sorts of moronic orders from the center that they strive to carry them out quickly, without thinking about the content.”
This is not the first time that Bokhan has got schools to react to letters supposedly from the “authorities.”
In October 2023, he “tasked” teachers at a school in Kaluga to congratulate President Vladimir Putin on his birthday for which he provided a portrait of the young Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian far-right leader considered to be a symbol of the Ukrainian struggle against Russia along with several of his quotes. The teachers listened, complied with the demands and sent him a report of them holding “the evidence.”
In February 2024 he tasked teachers to organize a school prayer session in front of the icons of “Saints Svetlana and Stepan,” and sent photos of the icons that should be displayed –sadly one of the “saints” was again a picture of Stepan Bandera. The teachers held the collective prayers and sent a photo report of the ceremony to Bokhan., which then appeared on social media.
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