VICENZA, Italy, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Five students in Italy were questioned after a 16-year-old boy refused to attend school because of their alleged bullying and homophobic actions, police said.
The boy's parents told police the alleged classroom bullies in Vicenza, Italy, four boys and a girl, locked their son in a girls' restroom at school, hid gay pornography in his backpack and posted want ads for explicit homosexual relationships with his name and phone number at bus stops because they considered him too "feminine," the Italian news agency ANSA reported Thursday.
Violence and intimidation in the school-age population has become a growing concern in Italy after highly publicized incidents recently, ANSA said, noting a 15-year-old student in Rome took his life last week, allegedly because of the derision he endured because of his presumed homosexuality.
