Corpun file 24435 at www.corpun.com

Kaniva Pacific, New Zealand, 8 April 2013

Pacific Ways

Teenage students harshly spanked in Tonga

By Kalino Latu

Thousands of Tongan social media networks users have taken to Facebook to view and express their fury at a video tape that went viral on the internet last Thursday night showing a number of teenage students being severely beaten on their bums with about a 4 feet stick.

The graphic and violent video was first uploaded into YouTube in the beginning of last week titled as Corporal punishment carried out in Tonga College Atele by a person known to be Faa-ko Fieme'a but YouTube removed it later on Thursday afternoon saying it violates their policy of prohibiting content.

The Kaniva Tonga News Website after receiving various links for the video from anonymous senders re-uploaded the tape onto its website after YouTube's removal.

Commenters on Facebook say they are really shocked to see the video which apparently shows students ages approximately 13 to 17 years old being lined up and in turn repeatedly receiving severe spanks because of a telephone mobile [sic] belonging to one of the senior boys had allegedly [been] stolen.

The 19 minute video tape is said to have been taken in an incident that happened in 2011 at Tonga College where the spanking was made by some senior students understood to be prefects of the college.

Students at schools in Tonga are used to being severely spanked but parents have not had the opportunity to see how their children are being beaten as what [sic] they have now experienced in this video tape.

Some Tonga College ex-students called on the Kaniva Tonga news website to remove the video as they are hugely embarrassed for being at the centre of people's anger and negative comments on social media networks.

Opponents of the removal of the tape believed that this is an opportunity to attract worldwide attention and thus influence Tonga's authorities to urgently address this issue.

The practice is culturally acceptable in Tonga as a form of discipline but the law does not condone spanking at school.

© 2013 Kaniva Tonga Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

3 RELATED VIDEO CLIPS

Here is the film referred to above, taken in the boarding school dormitory as prefects try (unsuccessfully, it would appear) to find the missing telephone. As the whole film is 19 minutes long, it has been split here into two parts. Boys are repeatedly made to walk or run past the prefect wielding the stick (it is not a proper punishment cane) to receive one whack on the seat of the shorts. The picture quality is poor.

HERE IS THE FIRST CLIP OF TWO:

HERE IS THE SECOND CLIP OF TWO:

The third clip supplies some background to the above, including an interview with the new principal of the school, who says such practices have been stopped. This is a two-minute news segment from Australian Network News on 10 April 2013 entitled "Tonga principal apologises over beating video".

HERE IS THE CLIP:

IMPORTANT: Copyright in this video material rests with the original copyright holders. This brief excerpt is reproduced under the "fair use" doctrine for private, non-profit, historical research and education purposes only. It must not be redistributed or republished in any commercial context.

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