An 11-year-old primary school student, Islam Amro, has allegedly been beaten to death by his teacher at a school in Alexandria, Egypt, the local press reported. According to the report, the teacher, Haitham Nabeel Abdelhamid, was angry that Islam had not completed his homework. Initially, the teacher used a ruler to punish the boy, but then the beating took an even more violent turn. The student was taken from the classroom where he was hit violently in the stomach. After being beaten by the teacher, Amro fainted and was rushed to a local hospital, where he died of heart failure, after suffering a sharp drop in blood pressure. The teacher, who told the prosecutor that he was only trying to “discipline the boy, not to kill him”, remains in police custody on manslaughter charges. Corporal punishment is a common occurrence in Egyptian schools, despite efforts to stem the practice by rights organisations and the government.
