Court orders home detention for Adana teacher who hit boy

A court on Oct. 19 sentenced an elementary school teacher in the southern province of Adana to home detention after footage emerged of him hitting a first-grader for not being able to write the letter “D” on the board.

The teacher, identified only as Hacı A., was detained and referred to a court after giving his testimony.

The incident was uncovered when the child, attending the Şakirpaşa Elementary School in Adana’s Seyhan district, told his parents, after which video footage emerged.

“The teacher called me up to the chalkboard. He told me to write the letter and when I couldn’t do so he beat me. I was hurt,” the child said.

The boy’s father then filed a legal complaint against the teacher, after which a prosecutor launched an investigation on suspicion of “deliberately injuring a child.”

The local education directorate in Seyhan launched an administrative inquiry into the teacher and suspended him temporarily until the inquiry is concluded.

The physical assault on the child was recorded by a parent who was in the classroom in order to help their own child get used to the school environment.

In the video, the teacher is seen showing the boy how to write the letter “D” on the chalkboard and then asks the boy to do it on his own. When the little boy cannot write the letter, the teacher takes his hand to write it together. But when the child cannot write it again, the teacher gets angry and can be seen slapping him twice on the back of his neck and shouting at him.