Salted Pork
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After German daily newspaper "The Tagesspiegel" asked their readers to tell about incidents of school violence and bullying, they received a lot of replies.

"Our son is in fourth grade at a middle school and has been bullied since the first year. He was abused, beaten and kicked because he is German. Classmates call him 'German pig', 'pig' and 'German potato'. At his school are mainly children with a migrant background. Most are Muslims," one family says.

The boy and his family live in Berlin-Mitte, which is a multicultural neighbourhood, according to them. "We like to live there, we have a motley circle of friends. But our son being bullied and attacked for allegedly eating pork is simply unbearable for us. He does not even eat any, we are vegetarians."

"In addition to countless insults that he has to listen to daily, our son was kicked down a staircase and beaten several times in the schoolyard - sometimes in front of the teacher. He was picked up from school by the ambulance more than once", the family continues.

The boy once had to stay in a hospital for a weekend because a classmate had kicked him in the stomach and it was unclear whether any organs were injured, the family tells The Tagesspiegel. "There have been six incidents so far in just one year. We do not want to take this anymore".

Because of all the incidents the boy now needs psychological treatment, and the perpetrators? They barely get any sanctions because they are minors.

"Once, after one attacked our son, one of them said, 'Just call me, I'm not yet 14.' Usually after such incidents there was only a conversation with social workers, apologies were made - and a day later, the same child attacked again."

The family says, "there is a climate of violence at the school, and some teachers do not dare to look some students in the eye because the ten-year-olds are so quickly offended in their honour".