Abusive teacher tries to justify beating by claiming student was spreading rumors about him

Duvar English 

A middle school teacher who is on trial for beating one of his students, has tried to justify his action by claiming that the student had spread rumors about him.

“T.K. [the student] spread rumors that I was smoking in the classroom and was swearing at students. Through this way, he drove a wedge between me and the school management,” the mathematics teacher Ali Rıza Y., 40, said in his testimony, according to Demirören news agency.

A recently circulated video footage showed the teacher jumping down on the 10-year-old T.K.'s throat and beating him severely. The incident occurred on Dec. 14 in the Central Anatolian province of Aksaray's Salih Aksu Middle School.

The severe beating was captured on the school's security footage. It was only when another teacher heard the child's cries and took him out of the abuser's hands that the beating stopped.

After the child's family received a health report for him documenting the severe bruises, they have filed a criminal complaint against the teacher, for whom prosecutors are asking up to one and a half years in jail.

After a brief detention period during when his testimony was taken, the teacher was released by a court order under judiciary control measures. In the meantime, the provincial Education Directorate launched an administrative investigation against the teacher and temporarily suspended him from his duty pending trial.

Although the indictment says Ali Rıza Y. slapped his student nine times, the dismissed teacher said that he had “merely slapped him a couple of times.” “My purpose was to prevent the victim from making it a habit of constantly telling lies. I shouted at the student, 'How would you tell lies, say wrong things about me,'” the teacher said.

The student's family said that the incident cannot be named as merely a “simple injury.” Lawyer Ali Oğuz Şahin said that the teacher had “misused his authority” and “committed an injury against someone who is unable to defend himself both physically and spiritually.” “We are in an effort so that he receives a punishment from the highest limit and that no one else attempts such incidents again,” he said.