Akel on Friday said the education ministry is “pretending not to see the essence of the issue and how the far right is poisoning our schools and our youth”, in reaction to the ministry’s statement over images of children at a school in Dherynia performing Nazi salutes after the taking of their official class photograph.

The party said the ministry’s statement “raises more questions and concerns about where the country’s education system is heading”.

“By downgrading the incident to ‘recklessness’ and downgrading the Nazi salute to ‘a gesture which can be misinterpreted’ and by ignoring the responsibilities of teachers and the school’s management, the education ministry is pretending not to see the essence of the issue,” it said.

It added, “the far right exploits historical ignorance and cultivates historical distortion” and that it “is reproduced by the nationalist ideologies embedded in the education system and is encouraged by the tolerance shown by the state towards it, as well as by its normalisation by most of the political system”.

It then made reference to a resolution passed by parliament in 2017, which said that “knowledge about the history, character and practices of fascism and Nazism must constitute a permanent duty for education systems in Europe, including Cyprus, with the ultimate goal of creating free and democratic consciences”.

The resolution, it said, had also pointed out that “Cyprus has a painful historical experience from the actions of fascism” and that “the memory, research and teaching of the historical truth about the crimes of fascism in Cyprus must also be taught as a matter of duty for the Cypriot education system”.

The association of political science graduates was largely in agreement, calling for the reintroduction of political education lessons, which were abolished in 2015.

“After all, photographs were not needed for it to be understood that such ideas in behaviours have penetrated schools, and that the state has failed to sufficiently invest in democratic education,” the association said.

The ministry’s statement, published on Thursday, had instructed school staff to “avoid similar gestures in the future” as they “could be misinterpreted”.

“It appears that the gesture, which refers to a Nazi salute, was a reckless exhibition of behaviour by middle school pupils after the end of their official school photoshoot,” the ministry began.

It added that it had investigated the matter and “concluded that it was a reckless exhibition of behaviour”.

The image of the children performing a Nazi salute had come to light on Tuesday, with Akel reacting furiously.

The incident occurred at the Peace and Freedom combined middle school and high school near Dherynia, with the party alleging that the children’s teacher had “encouraged” the children to perform the salute.

“It is extremely problematic that a teacher at the school encouraged students to continue taking photographs while performing Nazi salutes, despite the reaction of her colleague to the incident,” the party said, though it did not elaborate on who the colleague was or how they reacted.

“The reproduction of Nazi symbols, even ‘for fun’, constitutes a dangerous deviation which offends the collective memory and undermines the democratic values of education. Nazism has no place in our schools, nor does it have any place in our society,” it added.

“Democracy cannot allow for tolerance towards Nazism.”