The girl was allegedly raped for an hour in the toilets of her school by four boys, while three girls stood by and watched, one of them filming it all on her mobile phone.

The victim and her mother had to leave the village for Athens, after receiving a number of threats, and the mother says the school is refusing to talk to her. The girl claims the rape was accompanied by racist insults.

Since becoming public, many of the locals have apparently turned against the pair. The village mayor told the media there should be some consideration for the boys "who were upset by all this as well". One of the boys charged is the son of one of the teachers, while another is the son of a local policeman.

The case prompted the Greek president, Karolos Papoulias, to link the incident to racism. "This is a shocking moment for our society, " he said.

"Greeks have experienced emigration and racism and we will not impose what we have been through on the immigrants living and working here."

He is not alone. "If it had been four Bulgarian boys that had raped a Greek girl, they would have been dead by now, " a local resident said in an email to national TV.

In her testimony, the alleged victim told police she followed the boy because she was in love with him.

Once she entered the toilets, he and his three friends held her down and raped her for an hour. "I cried and screamed and begged them to stop but they were acting like beasts." The boys initially denied the incident, but later said they had consensual sex.

Police has asked for the mobile phone on which the incident was filmed, but the girls said they had erased it.

All four boys have since been suspended from school for five days for displaying indecent behaviour on school premises. The girl has also been suspended on the same grounds, after saying she that she voluntarily followed one of the boys to the toilets. The four boys have now been charged with rape. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in juvenile centres or jail.