“Bullying will not be tolerated”

THE chief prosecutor of the Balearic High Court, Bartomeu Barceló, said yesterday that “zero tolerance” would be applied to bullying in local schools.
He was speaking at the presentation of a three day debate on the conflicts and opportunities facing schoolchildren today. The three day debate, which opens on Thursday, will be attended by more than 375 experts. One of the main themes of the debate will be bullying, and Barceló made it clear that it would not be tolerated.
He explained that the meeting will analyse the problems facing schoolchildren, including lack of adaptation, truancy, consumption and sale of drugs and bullying. He added that bullying is a “parallel” phenomenon to domestic violence.
Barceló was accompanied by Francesc Fiol, the Balearic minister of education and culture.
Fiol said that the Balearic government had set up an observatory to take action in cases of bullying and next year it will have a budget of 30'000 euros. José Diaz, the prosecuter of the minors' court, said that his department would apply new legal mechanisms to tackle bullying.
Among the experts who will be presenting papers are Catherine Blaya, the director of the European Observatory of School Violence, and Pilar Castillo, a member of former Prime Minister José Maria Aznar's cabinet between 2000 and 2004.