Yet another Quran course instructor probed over child sexual abuse charges

Duvar English

A child in southeastern Turkey's Siirt province reported having been repeatedly sexually assaulted at a Quran course by an educator identified as D.M. who threatened the child to remain silent about the abuse, news portal T24 reported on Oct. 19.

A male child at the Tillo Boarding Quran Course was noticed by an educator to be acting differently, prompting private conversations between the two where the survivor recounted repeatedly being assaulted between September 2019 to March 2020.

"All hell will break loose if you tell anyone about it," the child quoted the perpetrator as telling him. Separately, an employee of the institution testified to prosecutors that the child was wanting to leave the course because of difficulties he was facing.  

Another student who's a family member of the survivor also told the prosecutors that his relative had reported the abuse and said that he was trying to leave the course. 

The survivor was 15 when the assaults started and told Child Protection Services in detail the abuse he endured. 

A forensic report confirmed the child's statement in detail with injuries on his body, prompting the Siirt Prosecutor's Office to call the perpetrator D.M. to testify. The suspect said that the child was "fabricating" the accusations because he wanted to leave the course. 

D.M. said that any private interaction with the survivor was in relation to his desire to leave, but the court arrested D.M. immediately after his official testimony on Oct. 12. 

An indictment was prepared the next day, on Oct. 13 in an uncharacteristically procedural process by the judiciary that's often accused of delaying justice via slow operations. 

The indictment charged D.M. with child sexual abuse, although locals have protested the prosecution for the sake of the Quran course's reputation.