Arrest of Teacher Involved in Physical Punishment of a Student in Kerman

One week after reports of "severe physical punishment" of a student by his teacher in the "Rudbar-e Jonub" county of Kerman province, the prosecutor of this county announced that the teacher has been arrested on charges of "intentional bodily harm and child abuse." According to Mizan, the official news agency of the judiciary, Sohrab Salari reported on Tuesday, April 23, that the injured student has been referred to forensic medicine and this case is being handled "urgently." Reports indicate that on Saturday, April 15, the second-grade teacher at the "Faghahat" school in the "Bahrain" village of "Rudbar-e Jonub" severely punished a student with a metal ruler for not completing his homework. Following the publication of these reports, the Minister of Education ordered the teacher to be suspended from work and his case to be referred to the administrative violations committee. The punishment of students in "Rudbar-e Jonub" has made headlines multiple times. For instance, last February, during the punishment of a third-grade student at the "Shahid Salami" school in "Rudbar-e Jonub," a pencil had penetrated the student's head. Previously, in October 2016, reports emerged about several students at the "Makhtarabad" village school in "Rudbar-e Jonub" being whipped due to their inability to pay a tuition fee of 30,000 tomans. However, the Kerman Education Department deemed these reports "false, fabricated, and malicious." Rahim Mirshahvold, the Director General of Performance Evaluation and Complaint Response at the Ministry of Education, announced that in the years 2015 and 2016, 1,924 complaints regarding physical punishment of students in schools were registered, of which 1,274 complaints were "justified."