Hurriyet reports that parents want a teacher of religion classes in northern Turkey to be fired for telling her female students that they “deserve rape” for not wearing hijab.
“You don’t cover your head anyway, so raping you or doing evil to you is permissible [in Islam],” the female teacher, identified by the initials L.Y.İ., told students at the Halil Rıfat Paşa Middle School in the province of Tokat on March 9, according to parents who spoke to Doğan News Agency.
That seems very harsh. It seems way out of proportion. Rape is a terrible thing to do to a human being; not wearing hijab is not a terrible thing to do to anyone, not even Mohammed or Allah. One of the things punishments should be is proportional.
According to the parents, the teacher also told the girls that they should have prayed for Özgecan Aslan – whose brutal murder in southern Turkey on Feb. 13 caused national outrage – instead of going to demonstrations to commemorate her.
Mahmut Demirbağ, the school’s headmaster, reportedly told the parents that the teacher “apologized” for the comments. However, some parents have continued to demand that she be dismissed, threatening legal action.
“She insulted 13-year-old girls for not wearing a headscarf during a Quran class, which is elective. This teacher cannot lecture my daughter,” a parent told the Doğan News Agency.
They’re not broken yet in Turkey. That’s good.