Homeschooling

Germany: Homeschooling Family’s Children Seized In Shocking Raid

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HSLDA Founder and Chairman Mike Farris meets with the Wunderlich family during the Global Home Education Conference held in Berlin, Germany in October 2012. Farris is asking homeschoolers to contact German officials on behalf of the Wunderlichs.

– Children Seized in Shocking Raid (HSLDA, Aug 30, 2013):

At 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, August 29, 2013, in what has been called a “brutal and vicious act,” a team of 20 social workers, police officers, and special agents stormed a homeschooling family’s residence near Darmstadt, Germany, forcibly removing all four of the family’s children (ages 7-14). The sole grounds for removal were that the parents, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, continued to homeschool their children in defiance of a German ban on home education.

The children were taken to unknown locations. Officials ominously promised the parents that they would not be seeing their children “anytime soon.”

HSLDA obtained and translated the court documents that authorized this use of force to seize the children. The only legal grounds for removal were the family’s continuation of homeschooling their children. The papers contain no other allegations of abuse or neglect. Moreover, Germany has not even alleged educational neglect for failing to provide an adequate education. The law ignores the educational progress of the child; attendance—and not learning—is the object of the German law.

Read moreGermany: Homeschooling Family’s Children Seized In Shocking Raid

Parents Have No ‘Right’ To Homeschool Their Kids, Says Justice Department

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– Parents have no ‘right’ to homeschool their kids, says Justice Department (Natural News, May 13, 2013):

Individual liberty is being burned at the stake, as governments set fire to people natural rights. This time it has everything to do with homeschooling.

It all started in Germany. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike were raising their five children in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg, when they decided to remove their children from the public education system. In 2006, the Romeike’s illegally withdrew their children from the German public schools system and began homeschooling. Believing that the public education system was undermining their Christian faith, the Romeike’s began breaking the law and teaching their kids at home. By exercising their natural rights, the Romeikes were fined over $10,000 by the German government and at one point their children were forcefully removed from their home. In 2010, after getting their children back, they chose to flee Germany and move to the United States.

Finding freedom in the US, only to be challenged again, this time by the US

Upon arrival in Tennessee, the Romeikes were granted asylum. A federal judge rebuked the German policy and ruled that the Romeike’s had a reasonable fear of persecution for their personal beliefs if they returned to Germany.

Nothing much was said about the issue until the Obama’s Administration’s Department of Justice got involved.

Attorney General, Eric Holder came out and opposed the federal court ruling, siding with the German government. He pleaded that the Romeike’s be denied their asylum. Holder believes that governments may legitimately use force and authority to make parents comply with government-sanctioned schools.

With statements like these, the United States, once a beacon for liberty, is now endorsing force and mandates in regard to education. The right to homeschool and teach one’s own children is a fundamental human right is now at stake. It doesn’t matter what beliefs each family has. It’s liberty that matters. According to Holder, that liberty should be supervised by the federal government.

Read moreParents Have No ‘Right’ To Homeschool Their Kids, Says Justice Department

Connecticut Proposes Bill For Forced Mental Health Checks On Homeschoolers

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– Connecticut proposes bill for forced mental health checks on homeschoolers ?(Natural News, Feb 19, 2013):

Connecticut officials are proposing legislation that would require state investigations of children on an unprecedented level, critics contend, by calling for a “confidential behavioral health assessment” of every public school student in sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades, as well as every homeschooled student aged 12, 14 and 17.

The proposed legislation, called Bill 374, has been labeled by critics as little more than a shocking home invasion measure, WorldNetDaily reported.

“It’s outrageous that state officials could come into private homes and potentially remove children if they are assessed as a threat as a result of the investigation,” Dee Black, senior counsel to the Home School Legal Defense Association, told the website. “Regardless of what state officials claim, I don’t believe the results [of the investigations] will be held confidential.”

Read moreConnecticut Proposes Bill For Forced Mental Health Checks On Homeschoolers

German Prosecutor to Homeschoolers: No Compromise – You are Going to Jail!

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As a side note:

Soon after their takeover of power in Germany, the Nazi government resumed talks with the Holy See concerning the establishment of a concordat. Previously, concordats, regulating the relation between the Catholic Church and the state, had been established in Bavaria (1924), Prussia (1929) and Baden (1932), but talks had failed on a federal level for several reasons. The Reichskonkordat was signed on July 20, 1933.
….
In Germany, “to this day religion nominally remains a state affair.”[13] For the large churches in Germany (Catholic and evangelisch) the German government collects the church tax, which is then given to the Churches.
(Source: Wikipedia)

The churches never complained! The government takes away your money for the churches without ever asking you if you want to ‘donate’ your money to the church or not?

That is exactly the behavior that the churches condemn in public to be that of a sect, a cult or a criminal, dictatorial organization!

Juergen and Rosemary Dudek of Archfeldt, Germany, were sentenced to 90 days in prison in July 2008 because they homeschool their children.

Their sentence was overturned by an appeals court because of a legal error, and a new trial was ordered. Their new trial began November 16. German news reports indicate the judge appears disposed to seek a compromise.

But prosecutor Herwig Mueller has vowed to appeal any sentence that does not include jail time for these parents, who have been in the spotlight for years because of their insistence on homeschooling.

This was the same prosecutor who appealed the lower court sentence of only a fine, saying to the family, “You don’t have to worry about the fine because I will send you to jail.”

Armin Eckermann, president of the homeschool organization, Schuzh, was present at the trial. He told HSLDA the judge was seeking a compromise.

“This judge said that he thought a jail sentence was too harsh for the Dudek family under this situation,” said Eckermann. “But the prosecutor took a hard line.”

The new trial was continued to next week after more than seven hours of testimony. This included an outburst by Mr. Mueller when Mr. Dudek asked the local school officials if they knew the current laws that criminalize homeschoolers were based on laws from 1938.

Mr. Mueller loudly protested: “All those Nazi laws have been suspended, and this one is democratic, and you’ve got to accept it, and that’s it.”

Mr. Dudek disagrees.

“The ‘Schulpflicht’—the laws that require school attendance—are on the books in the German states,” he explained, “and have been traced back to the ‘Reichschulpflicht Gesetz’ [federal compulsory attendance laws] which was passed in 1938.

Except for the removal of references to the Nazi party, these laws are identical or substantially the same as the laws passed by Hitler’s government, criminalizing parents who keep their children home for school.”

The Dudeks feel that homeschooling their children is the right thing to do and are determined resist what they consider unjust laws barring them from home education.

“The judge gave me an opportunity to discuss my reasons for homeschooling, for which I am grateful,” said Mr. Dudek. “But he told us that the constitutional court has already ruled on the issue of whether homeschooling is allowed.

Read moreGerman Prosecutor to Homeschoolers: No Compromise – You are Going to Jail!