Video of an Egyptian day care teacher shows him beating at least 10 children, pulling their hair and slapping them with a ruler. The teacher, Magdi el-Shaar, claims that he was forced to beat the children – some as young as five – after January’s revolution.

The Daily Mail describes the video:

As his tiny students line up to have their homework marked, he orders them over to his desk, barks at them in Arabic and then smacks them – on the hand, or back of the neck – with a wooden ruler.

On occasion – particularly with the female students – he grabs them, pulling hair and physically beating them.

The video also shows that two adults were present in the room watching. Neither intervened.

El-Shaar says that hitting children is the best way to discipline them in the wake of January’s revolution that forced President Hosni Mubarak from office:

According to local reports he said in his defence that physical abuse was the best means for straightening out children and teaching them, especially after the January 25 revolution which saw the exit of President Hosni Mubarak, who ruled the Middle Eastern country for 32 years.

El-Shaar allegedly told prosecutors: ‘Beating and corporal punishment are the best means for disciplining children specially after the January 25 revolt.’

Egypt is infamous for its teachers’ poor treatment of students. In 2008, a teacher in Alexandria punched a student in the stomach for not doing his homework. The blow caused heart failure and resulted in the student’s death.