Sarah:
Persons should be discouraged
from posting fights on internet
SOUTH REWARD--Education Commissioner Sarah Wescot-Williams said while nothing can be done to prevent persons from posting stuff on the World Wide Web, the community should discourage persons from posting certain negative things on the internet.
She was giving her opinion about the rowdy behaviour of some local high school students which is featured on the World Wide Web on You Tube, the same Website that generated some controversy late last month when a video clip made at Bon Futuro Prison in Curaçao was featured.
She said with the technology available today, not much can be done to prevent this from happening rather than to discourage persons from doing so.
“As a community we can discourage the practice,” she said during Wednesday’s Executive Council press briefing. “What does it serve to highlight what happens on St. Maarten especially at our educational facilities in such a (negative) light,” she questioned. “What does it serve except to create some sensationalism?”
Asked whether she could do anything in her capacity to ensure that the fighters in the video postings were punished, she said once a fight occurs among students, the necessary investigations are done.
In one of the postings on the You Tube Website, the abbreviation for Milton Peters College (MPC) was referred to as “Murder People Children.”
The most recent fight was uploaded on Sunday, April 1, with the headline “St. Maarten girls fighting over man.” It featured a fight among mostly female students dressed in St. Maarten Academy and Milton Peters College (MPC) uniforms. The fight appears to have taken place outside the Academy PSVE campus.
Another video uploaded in November 2006 shows a fight on the MPC premises. The video clip is entitled “MPC girl fight” and mentions the names of two students: one girl in uniform walks up to another girl (out of uniform) sitting on a bench outside the school and starts arguing. A fight erupts.
Another video also uploaded in November 2006 shows a student in MPC uniform approaching a Sundial School student (both girls) on the street. They start arguing. The MPC student is shown pointing her hands in the face of the Sundial student as if instigating a fight. She subsequently deals the Sundial student several blows before the Sundial student walks away without lifting a finger.
Fighting at local schools has been a big problem in recent years and is something that several schools have been trying to tackle. Some of the fights have been violent and have landed several students in the hospital.
It is believed that the clips on You Tube must have been taken by other students who witnessed the fights and used the cameras of their cellular phones.
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