No jail


Student commits suicide after being beaten by school basketball coach

Osaka board of Education officials told a news conference on Tuesday that a 17-year-old high school student committed suicide on Dec 23 after he was physically punished by a teacher who coached the basketball team. The officials said the incident happened at Sakuranomiya high school on Dec 22. The boy, who had an excellent academic record, was captain of the school basketball team which the 47-year-old teacher had coached since 1994, Fuji TV reported. (continue reading on japantoday)

Is this a separate case from the case in which a volley ball coach slapped his student across his face 14 times? This is crazy! This poor student wrote a note to the teacher before hanging himself to death and in the letter, he says that he cannot cope with being physically punished. The school investigated the case and also spoke with the coach and his reasoning is that he did it to toughen the boy up. The coach apologized to the victim’s family but does he expect them to forgive him? Yes I have to agree that something must have been wrong with this student for deciding to take his own life because there should have been alternative solutions to this issue. He could have reported the incident to the parents and they could have gone to the police because corporal punishment is illegal in Japan. But it still happens all the time. Couldn’t this student take a different approach instead of killing himself? Japan has one of the highest suicide rates among the developed countries and it is reported that more than 30,000 people commit suicides every year, and it is actually under reported.

This teacher did admit to hitting the student during the trial and he said that he was wiling to receive any kind of sentences. All these cases that have come up over the last two years are definitely damaging the reputation of Japan, and I wouldn’t know how the Japanese government is going to restore the image.

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