Two teachers in Turkey could not stand the torture of being exposed to a couple of other teachers hugging for birthday and reported the incident to their superiors. This is how the whole vice of celebrating one’s birthday came to light
Two teachers in Turkey could not stand the torture of being exposed to a couple of other teachers hugging for birthday and reported the incident to their superiors. This is how the whole vice of celebrating one’s birthday came to light.
According to the testimony of one of the hugging teachers, the woman, the event occurred on her birthday. “While coming back from an organized event in the school, I met another teacher, a friend. He congratulated me for the event. Then I told him it was my birthday and asked why he did not celebrate my birthday. He then hugged and wished me happy birthday. The camera recordings could be used to verify this incident. We both knew the school had cameras there but didn’t care as we were not doing anything indecent or illegal. There was nothing wrong in our hugging and the incident was nothing more than two people just giving a hug to celebrate a birthday. There is nothing against hugging in either the Constitution of Turkey or the National Education Policy. They tried twisting this by going against everything people deem proper like their morals, honor and trying to show a hug as immoral.”
The other teacher, a male, who hugged her also denied any wrongdoing and promised he would be using his legal rights to go after those who complained of an innocent hug.
The principle of the high school insisted that the hug was indecent and demanded an investigation. After receiving the complaint from the school principle, the higher Van district governor allowed an enquiry to proceed which started the Van National Education Administration Disciplinary Commission to form a team to probe into the matter.
The Education auditors travelled to the high school to get to the bottom of the crime. They recorded the teachers’ defenses and asked the security tapes for evidence.
When the complaint reached the state department, the Turkish governor of Çatak prompted an investigation of “Acting Indecently” and tasked the local District Attorney to investigate the event. The DA requested all school videos from security cameras pertaining to the day and the time the crime was committed as evidence. After investigation, the offence was brought to the local court where the judge went over the accusations and the video evidence of hugging. On October 10, 2019, the court decided that at the time when two teachers hugged no criminal act took place. The court observed that the couple had indeed hugged, which was captured by the security cameras. However, if the couple had engaged in indecent acts not captured by the security system, this would not be a case handled in the courts due to lack of evidence but should be taken as an administration issue by the authorities at the Education department.
When the prosecutors and the judge ordered a dismissal of the case, the Education department however went ahead with the case of hugging and said the embracing incident was far beyond how teachers were expected to act.
As a result, the woman teacher’s salary was cut and was sentenced to be appointed to another school in the boundaries of the same province. The male teacher also received a sentence to be moved to another school.
The teachers will appeal the decision. However, the people of Van are sleeping better now knowing they are protected from teachers hugging in broad daylight.
Sendika.Org News (M.B.)