Time to ban corporal punishment for good

Many people in Lebanon reacted with outrage after YouTube footage surfaced in March showing a man in an office beating three children on the soles of their feet with a wooden stick. Media outlets later identified the man as Moussa Daher, principal of the Makassed School in the village of Daiat al-Arab in southern Lebanon. In the video, Moussa is heard saying to one of the children, “Every time you put your feet down I will beat you more.” The children are crying and pleading for him to stop. Media reports said that Moussa was punishing the students for failing their exams. While the head of the Makassed School Association condemned Moussa’s violence, he justified the acts as “momentarily losing control” and said that, “the parents asked the principal to be harsh with their children.” Education Minister Elias Bou Saab dismissed the principal, but the parents of the children who were