POLICE STATE, DEUTSCHLAND
Achtung! Germany drags homeschool kids to class
Authorities haul crying children away to avoid 'danger' from parental
teachings
Posted: October 25, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
 
 

By Bob Unruh
  © 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

A Nazi-era law requiring all children to attend public school, to avoid
"the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical
convictions" that could be taught by parents at home, apparently is
triggering a Nazi-like response from police.

The word comes from Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit, or Network for Freedom
in Education, which confirmed that children in a family in Bissingen,
in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, have been forcibly hauled to a
public school.

"On Friday 20 October 2006 at around 7:30 a.m. the children of a home
educating family ... were brought under duress to school by police,"
the organization, which describes itself as politically and religiously
neutral, confirmed.

A separate weblog in the United States noted the same tragedy.

Homeschoolblogger.com noted that the "three children were picked up by
the police and escorted to school in Baden-Wurttemberg, with the
'promise' that it would happen again this week."

The Network for Freedom in Education, through spokesman Joerg
Grosseluemern, said the Remeike family has been "home educating their
children since the start of the school year, something which is legal
in practically the whole of the (European Union)."

"However, on this morning, they were confronted by police officials,
who, in an incredibly inconsiderate manner, forced their crying
children into a police car and drove them to the school. The police
stated that they had been instructed to continue this measure in the
coming week," the network statement said.

The network noted that the previous Minister of Education, Annette
Schavan, had said such actions were not needed, because "... the
children are generally not lacking in any other respects." Officials at
that time, in 2002, confirmed that "forcible methods" generally are
"not in the long-term interests of either the children or the police."

However, the network noted the priorities of current officials
obviously are different.

"The family involved emphasizes that their children are neither truant
nor school deniers, which are the cases for which such measures were
intended," said the network's statement, a translation from the
original German. "The Remeike family is fulfilling their children's
right to an education by educating them at home, with the support of
teachers from a distance learning academy, which also supplies the
necessary material."

School arguments that homeschooling endangers the welfare of the
children "lacks any factual foundation," the network statement said.

"Tearing the children from the bosom of their family by forcing
certainly does not contribute to their welfare. The result is more
likely to be traumatisation and the development of an aversion to
instruments of state authority," the statement said.

No comment could be obtained immediately from school or police
officials.

"The Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit strongly empathises with the Romeike
family, whom many of us know personally to be an intact and
conscience-driven family. We condemn the degrading act carried out by
the police as a blatant breach of the personal rights of individual
family members and call for the Mayor of Bissingen, as well as the
Office for Education of the District Authorities of Esslingen, to end
these sanctions."

The American blog noted that several other homeschooling parents
recently have been fined or imprisoned for brief jail terms for
teaching their children at home.

The blog reported that one mother spending a few days in jail for
providing homeschooling for her child "ended up leading a Bible study
for women who have begged her to come back."

It reported another family was fined $2,250 and members were being
attacked emotionally so that the father handed a nervous breakdown that
landed him in a hospital. The family put their two children in a public
school "but it was so awful, they pulled them out again . and put them
in a public Catholic school."

It also contained reports that Waldemar Block, the father of nine, was
arrested at his work earlier this month and jailed for 13 days, while
Olga Block, his sister-in-law, was jailed for 10 days for not paying
fines after she sent her children to a Christian school in Heidelberg.

The Home School Legal Defense Association, the largest homeschooling
group in the U.S. with more than 80,000 families, also has been working
to raise attention in the international community to the plight of
German homeschoolers, including several families in the
Baden-Wurttemberg region.

The group suggested contacting the German embassy, which had an
answering machine attached to the telephone line when WND left a
request for comment yesterday.

The HSLDA said that contact is:

Wolfgang Ischinger Ambassador German Embassy 4645 Reservoir Road NW
Washington, DC, 20007-1998 (202) 298-4000 or it can be e-mailed from
its its website.

The U.S. organization also noted that homeschooling has been illegal in
Germany probably since 1938 when Hitler banned it. It recently
announced a campaign to address the persecution Christians in Germany
are facing from education authorities.

Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the HSLDA, said it was launched after a
mother was arrested and jailed on criminal homeschooling counts.

In that case, according to a report in the Brussels Journal, Katharina
Plett was arrested and ordered to jail while her husband fled to
Austria with the family's 12 children.

The latest police-state actions follow by only weeks a recent ruling
from the European Human Rights Court that affirmed the German nation's
ban on homeschooling.

The Strasburg-based court addressed the issue on appeal from a
Christian family whose members alleged their human rights to educate
their own children according to their own religious beliefs are being
violated by the ban.

The specific case addressed in the opinion involved Fritz and Marianna
Konrad, who filed the complaint in 2003 and argued that Germany's
compulsory school attendance endangered their children's religious
upbringing and promotes teaching inconsistent with the family's
Christian faith.

The court said the Konrads belong to a "Christian community which is
strongly attached to the Bible" and rejected public schooling because
of the explicit sexual indoctrination programs that the courses there
include.

The German court already had ruled that the parental "wish" to have
their children grow up in a home without such influences "could not
take priority over compulsory school attendance." The decision also
said the parents do not have an "exclusive" right to lead their
children's education.

The family had appealed under the European Convention on Human Rights
statement that: "No person shall be denied the right to education. In
the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education
and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure
such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious
and philosophical convictions."

But the court's ruling said, instead, that schools represent society,
and "it was in the children's interest to become part of that society.

"The parents' right to education did not go as far as to deprive their
children of that experience," the ruling said.