A prominent national religious institution is condemning severe physical abuse of students following recent reports of corporal punishment in local schools. Dar al-Ifta issued a religious edict Thursday that severe beatings of students by teachers may harm them physically or psychologically and that perpetrators of these forbidden acts are considered transgressors, according to state TV's website. The edict reasoned that Islam banned all forms of harming people and there is no citation of Prophet Mohamed ever striking a child. It also added that children may be disciplined and corrected but not punished for committing sins until they reach adulthood. The edict said corporal punishment in schools has become far removed from educational purposes and is being used as punishment and even for revenge, which it said was undoubtedly forbidden. Several incidents of classroom abuse have been reported over the past week, including a Luxor teacher breaking a student's finger and an Alexandria teacher striking a student with a power cable. In Gharbiya, the parent of religious institute student filed a police report accusing a teacher of beating and injuring his son. A court also recently convicted a Luxor teacher for violence against two students whose hair she had cut in school. The Education Ministry has blamed the increase in classroom violence on instability as well as the lack of enforcement of rules against harming students. Authorities are also investigating the death of a primary school student in his Monufiya school Wednesday. A security source at Ashmoon police station said the student was killed during recess when he tried to jump from the two-story school building to an adjacent building under construction. His father has accused the school of negligence
