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Russian Teachers Should Photograph Opposition Students, Education Officials Say

Roman Demyanenko / TASS

A regional branch of the Education Ministry has issued a memo instructing schools to photograph students involved in opposition demonstrations.

Opposition leader and presidential hopeful Alexei Navalny organized a series of anti-corruption demonstrations this year ahead of presidential elections next March. Teachers have been caught on camera ridiculing students who attend unauthorized rallies.

Vladimir Milov, an opposition politician, posted a letter from the Vladimir region’s Education department instructing schools to step up oversight of demonstrations and hand out information about opposition groups.

Teachers were urged to take "gigapixel" quality pictures of demonstrators and post them to an anti-opposition website, where demonstrators are outed by matching their pictures to their Vkontakte sites.

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