A Belgian primary school teacher has been accused of hanging a 5-year-old pupil by his neck in the school’s playground after the child refused to stand in a line, according to a report in OnIslam.
The story surfaced last week after the child’s mother put on her Facebook page pictures of the injuries and said the teacher has ‘tortured’ her son.
“Because he did not want to stand in line, he was beaten and then hung on a rope,” she wrote, De Morgen newspaper reported on Thursday, September 10.
“I will do everything that the teacher will lose her job,” said the mother.
The shocking images led to thirty women protesting on Thursday at Bijtjes Kindergarten in Antwerp.
Red signs were noticed on the boy’s neck at the end of the play time after which the parents were notified.
Joke Cortens, a spokeswoman for the Municipal Education Antwerp, said that according to preliminary investigation, the teacher in question was not present at the playground.
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“Based on the information we have, the teacher concerned was not present at the playground,” Cortens said.
“We are as concerned as parents about how this accident could have happened. Further research should reveal this,” he added.
Antwerp councilor of Education Claude Marinower called for calm, saying he was deeply concerned by the incident and asked for a detailed report detailing the events of the day and what happened immediately after.
“No one is served by an escalation. The event will be thoroughly investigated and followed up. Both the parents involved, concerned teacher, other parents and school staff are supervised and supported,” Marinower said.
According to numbers released by the Pew Research centre in October 2010, Belgian Muslims are estimated at 638,000 – out of a 11.2-million-population.
25 percent of the population of Brussels is of Muslim origin from Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other African countries.
