Government Forcibly Removed Children From Their Parents Over Homeschooling

[Mystic Wanderer]

This case takes place in Germany, but I have seen certain states here in the U.S. getting on this train also.  They want the children in public schools where they will be taught (brainwashed) with the ideology they wish them to have... true, or not.

The Wunderlich family wanted to do what thousands of families in America do with no questions asked: educate their children at home.

But homeschooling is not allowed in Germany, and the state has relentlessly pursued the Wunderlichs and even seized their children. One morning in August 2013, 33 police officers and seven social workers showed up at their front door, threatening to open it with a battering ram. The parents cried as their children were carried screaming out of their home.
The children were later returned, but ordered to attend public school. Since then, the Wunderlichs have continued their fight in court, ultimately reaching the European Court of Human Rights.

Last week, they lost their case. The court sided with Germany, reaffirming that Germany’s ban on homeschooling does not violate the family’s rights under international law.

I represent the Wunderlich parents. The question I most commonly get from people when I explain their case is, “But what’s so bad about school?”

The answer... just what I stated above: They want to brainwash the children, and teach them the government has control over them.

Parents are the natural nurturers of children. They create children, provide for them, and make a whole host of judgments about how they will raise them. Education is just one of those areas of parental judgment.

It’s hard to imagine many decisions bigger than where your child will go to school. Indeed, in my country, parents literally sell homes and move to the other side of the same street to get into a particular school’s zone in order to make the educational choice they want.

Dirk and Petra Wunderlich wanted that same freedom. For a combination of religious, philosophical, and practical reasons, they decided they wanted to educate their children at home.

And they are not alone. Millions of other parents have decided to homeschool their children, too. In fact, homeschooling is growing in many parts of the world, and statistics from the U.S. estimate that more than 2 million American children are homeschooled. This right is protected by every major human rights treaty that exists. Major documents like the European Convention on Human Rights protect the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.

But Germany has made it a crime to homeschool children. 

Germany has agreed to be bound by these documents, and yet is one of very few countries that do not allow homeschooling, going so far in some states as to criminalize parents who try.

The German rationale is to prevent “parallel societies” from emerging. Lawyers representing the state presented this rationale to the European court without any evidence to support it as a theory.

We presented evidence to the contrary, showing that in countries with the longest history with homeschooling and the highest number of homeschoolers, the practice is tested, credible, and continues to grow.

Yet the court sided with Germany.

We should all be worried when the state overrides a parent’s decision based on the vague notion that it will be “better for society.”

Their idea of what's better for society doesn't appear to be working out too well today, does it?

In its decision last week, the European Court of Human Rights has undermined its claim to being the “conscience of Europe” and pitted parents against children. The court was set up to adjudicate disputes between individuals and the state, and yet it misframes this case as one in which the courts must mediate between parent and child: “[International law] requires that a fair balance must be struck between the interests of the child and those of the parent.”

The overt assumptions here—that parents do not have their children’s best interests at heart, and that the state knows better—should trouble any parent, whether your children are educated at home or at school.

Source


 I really hope the clutches of government control on people around the world is broken soon. 

When it comes to the government saying it has more rights over children than the parents do, well, it's time to lock and load!  

 

If I had young children now, I would be infuriated by this.  Heck, I'm infuriated without having young children; no telling what I'd do if I had young kids.  

[Wallfire]

This is once again a hard question. There are many good points with home schooling and many bad points. In Germany there is now a big problem with muslim youths taking control of schools. I would want the right to home school my kids if I lived there

[Ninurta]

Throughout time, persecution has been a huge motivator in migrations. By persecuting German citizens, the German government may well force their hand and cause them to have to move to more citizen - friendly countries...

... thus leaving Germany open to Islamic immigration, and giving Islam a firm foothold in Europe, one which it has not seen since the days of the Andalusian Caliphate. The beginning of the end of that expansionist caliphate was when they ran into the Frankish forces of Charles Martel. An attempt at expansion from the east by the Ottomans was stopped at the gates of Vienna some time later.

There ain't enough money on the planet to get me to move to Europe these days, as history seems to be repeating itself, and they've not learned anything from the first go-round.

.