A video clip of a teacher brutally beating up a female student in the classroom is creating a stir as it spreads around the Internet. View Video Clip Use Windows Media Player

A video clip of a teacher brutally beating up a female student in the classroom is creating a stir as it spreads around the Internet.

With the spread through the Internet of a video clip depicting a teacher assaulting a female girl in the classroom, the Gyeonggi-do District Office of Education decided to fire the teacher in question, Thursday. The teacher was in class at a school in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, when he made a girl step forward and brutally struck her in the face in front of the other students. This scene was caught on a camera phone and uploaded to the Internet as a video clip on Wednesday afternoon. The clip has been downloaded numerous times since then.

On Thursday, written protests were posted on the Web sites of the school in question and the Gyeonggi-do District Office of Education, saying that the act was "violence, not punishment," and that "dishonorable teachers should be discharged." Over 5,000 messages were posted on the district education office's Web board in a single day, and the names of the school and teacher in question were revealed.

Netizen Yu Hyun-jin asked, "What can students learn from a teacher who can't even control sudden outbursts of anger and who simply hits a girl with his fists?" Choi Uhm-seop wrote, "What is even more surprising is the teacher's comments defending his actions during an interview," adding that the teacher "should apologize to the student and her parents, and leave his post."

Other Internet messages read, "It is odd that such an incident happened when the teacher in question is normally such a quiet person."

(Park Min-sun, sunrise@chosun.com )