Community workers punished for classroom break-in

Two local community workers who broke into a classroom and forcibly removed a teacher on Thursday— purportedly for epidemic control — were punished by authorities, officials from Hanshan county of East China's Anhui province said on Sunday.

One of the workers surnamed Wang, who kicked the door of classroom open, received an inner-Party warning, while the other surnamed Li was admonished for not wearing a mask at the site, according to a statement by the Hanshan county government on Sunday morning.

A previous statement by the government on Friday said Wang's behavior was rude and inappropriate, while the teacher's actions had violated the local COVID-19 control measures.

An inner-Party warning, which can be issued to only Party members, means the person warned would not get promoted for a year and a record will stay in his or her profile.

A video that began circulating on the internet on Thursday shows a group of community workers taking a male teacher out of a classroom with a man's hand on the teacher's neck. As per the video, most of the students in the classroom are not wearing masks.

The teacher surnamed Jia is not professional teacher and does not have a teaching certification. He could face further investigation for not only violating epidemic control rules but also for allegedly teaching illegally.

While extracurricular teaching activities are popular during the two-month summer vacation all such classes were suspended across the county on July 25, after the neighboring Jiangsu province reported a COVID-19 outbreak on July 20.

The community workers arrived at Jia's teaching center on Thursday morning and asked him to suspend the classes, but the teacher resumed teaching in the afternoon after the community workers left, according to the statement issued Sunday.