The Leninsky District Court of Penza sentenced 45-year-old English teacher of the Olympic reserve school Irina Gen to five years probation in the case of “fake news” about the army motivated by political hatred (clause “d” part 2 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). This was reported on the website of the court.
The case against Gene was brought after a denunciation by a schoolboy – one of the students of the 8th "b" class, before whom she made an anti-war speech.
Judge Lyudmila Zhuravleva also banned the teacher from teaching for three years. The judge ruled that the teacher, having a "strong dislike for the president," gave the students false information about the army. This is how the court assessed Gen's statement that the Russian military started a war in the LDNR in 2014, shot down a Malaysian Boeing, fired at a maternity hospital in Mariupol and planned to overthrow the President of Ukraine.
On March 18, Irina Gen answered the question of why they would not be able to go to competitions in the Czech Republic to students of 8 "b". The teacher touched on the topic of the war, as a result of her explanations turned into an anti-war speech.
“To bomb the maternity hospital in Mariupol, let's also introduce a day of victory over the maternity hospital, I think so. They began to bomb Western Ukraine. Western Ukraine began to bomb. I don’t understand, what does Western Ukraine have to do with it? They wanted to reach Kyiv, overthrow Zelensky, the government. This is generally a sovereign state, there is a sovereign government. Blitzkrieg failed.
One of the schoolchildren secretly recorded it on a dictaphone, after which the audio was handed over to the security forces and a criminal case was opened against Gen for spreading “fakes” about the Russian army. In April, during an interrogation in the Leninsky department of the Investigative Committee of Penza, the teacher was acquainted with the recording of her conversation with the students, Gen did not admit guilt.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, teachers in Russian schools who speak out against the war have come under repeated pressure. In June, the Dzhankoy City Court fined teacher Susanna Bezaziyeva 30,000 rubles under the article on “discrediting the Russian Armed Forces” after she condemned the war in Ukraine in a conversation with students. In addition to bringing cases against teachers, since the end of February they have been sent manuals from the Ministry of Education with instructions on how to write campaign posts on social networks in support of the Russian army, The Insider found out. School leaders require teachers to take screenshots of posts in order to report to their superiors.
Also, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, various patriotic history lessons have been held in Russian schools. In February, teachers received another training manual, which substantiates the need for a "military operation" against the "fascist state." In the materials for the lessons on the questions of schoolchildren, ready-made answers are offered in a propaganda vein. The Insider talked about how such classes work and spoke with teachers about the pressure, teaching ethics and how children react to what is happening.