Appeal against 10-month prison sentence given to teacher for battering student

"Children have a bodily right to speak" (Photo: Hale Güzin Kızılaslan/csgorselarsiv.org)

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An appeal has been lodged against the 10-month prison sentence given to a former math teacher who battered his student in Aksaray.

Student S.T.K.'s lawyer Ali Oğuz Şahin has submitted a petition of appeal to the Ortaköy Criminal Court of First Instance to be referred to the Aksaray Criminal Court of First Instance and recalled that the defendant has been given a deferred prison sentence of 10 months in the trial.

Şahin has argued that while the elements of the crime of "plunder" were also constituted by the act of the defendant, the court board did not take the objections regarding this issue into consideration.

According to the lawyer, the court board should have given a decision of lack of jurisdiction in such a case and sent the file to a high criminal court. As this action was not taken by the local court, Şahin has explained that they, as the complainant party, have lodged an appeal.

Lawyer Ali Oğuz Şahin has further indicated that even though the former math teacher was not given a prison sentence at the lower limit, he should have been penalized at the upper limit considering the indignation that the incident has caused in both the intervening parties and the aggrieved child and the way in which the crime was committed.

"For this reason, we appeal against the ruling which has been handed down", the lawyer has said, recalling that there is no legal obligation to defer the pronouncement of the verdict in the trial.

"On the grounds of the indignation that the crime has caused in society and the chain of aggrievements on the part of the client and his sibling reaching the point of changing schools, the deferment of the pronouncement of the verdict has hurt the public conscience. We also appeal against the ruling in this respect," lawyer Ali Oğuz Şahin has explained further.

What happened?

At a secondary school in Turkey's Central Anatolian Aksaray province, math teacher Ali Rıza Y. slapped and smacked his student and jumped on his throat after taking him to the corridor. Hearing the noise, a teacher from another classroom intervened in the incident while another teacher also saw the incident, but did not intervene and went back to the classroom.

The incident was captured by the school's security camera. The father said that his son was given a 10-day disability report as a result of the violence he had been subjected to. The father announced that they filed a criminal complaint against the teacher. After the video footage of the incident was widely shared on social media, it caused a huge public outrage.

According to a statement released by the Governor's Office of Aksaray about the incident that happened on December 14, the teacher was expelled from the school. Another statement released by the Aksaray Chief Public Prosecutor's Office indicated that the suspect was taken into custody and he was released on probation by the criminal judgeship of peace.

Defendant Ali Rıza Y. was indicted for "actual bodily harm on a person who is not in a physical and mental state to defend oneself by a public officer with undue influence." The indictment demanded that Y. be penalized for the charged offense at the upper limit.

Put on trial for battering his student in Aksaray's Ortaköy, the former math teacher has been sentenced to 10 months in prison. (AÖ/SD)