The Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that a teacher who banged two students' heads together should be charged with injury, in a landmark ruling against corporal punishment.

Although not as common as in the past, incidents of corporal punishment, such as the slapping of students, are still reported in Turkey. A video surfaced last year of a teacher grabbing the head of an unruly student and wiping a blackboard with his hair.

The Court of Appeals overturned acquittal for the teacher, identified only as Ö.Ç., for the incident at a school in the southern city of Antalya. A lower court ruled out injury charges on the grounds that the teacher had no intent to injure. The higher court of appeals ruled that although the students did not suffer any bruises, the case was "an infliction of injury" and the teacher should be duly punished for "injury by a civil servant exerting his or her influence through the authority of his office." The teacher now faces up to one year in prison.