Homeschool family told
to give up 5 other kids
Officials suggest breakup would solve
dispute over daughter's home education
German authorities who sent 15 uniformed police officers to take custody of a 15-year-old girl who committed the crime of being homeschooled now have suggested a solution that, in their minds, would "resolve" the situation: the parents should give up custody of their other five children.
The situation involving Melissa Busekros has been in the headlines ever since the beginning of this month, when the officers arrived at her parents' home with a court order allowing them to take her into custody, "if necessary by force."
She had fallen behind in math and Latin, and was being tutored at home. When school officials in Germany, where homeschooling has been illegal since Adolph Hitler decided he wanted to control the educating of all children, discovered that fact, she was expelled. School officials then took her to court, obtaining a court order requiring she be committed to a psychiatric ward because of her "school phobia."
She later was moved to a different hospital without her parents' knowledge, and then put in foster care. She was permitted to make a telephone call to her parents, although she was not allowed to let them know where she was.
Then the court decided while none of those restrictions would be lifted, she would be allowed to meet for one hour a week with her parents, as long as the meeting took place in a government building.
Now the Home School Legal Defense Association, the nation's largest homeschool organization with more than 80,000 member families, has confirmed in a news alert to members the German government's offer to the family.
"Melissa’s father, Hubert Busekros, said he and his lawyer were offered a compromise this week that they could not accept," the HSLDA said. "The authorities wanted the Busekros's to give up custody of their other five children in order to resolve this situation. Hubert said the authorities are considering doing psychiatric exams on the other five children in order to implicate Hubert and his wife as unfit parents and thereby break up the family."
Such actions, the homeschool organization said, are "an outrage."
"There are approximately 40 other cases pending in Germany [against homeschoolers]," the HSLDA said. "Many homeschool families have fled to Austria or another nearby country where homeschooling is legal. The German government is persecuting these innocent families without mercy. The German Embassy has indicated they cannot allow 'parallel cultures.' Christian homeschooling is a 'parallel culture' that Germany does not want."
Practical Homeschool Magazine noted one of the first acts by Hitler when he moved into power was to create the governmental Ministry of Education and give it control of all schools, and school-related issues.
In 1937, the dictator said, "The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing."
"It is beyond belief that Germany is still enforcing a law that was written for one reason only – to be used by Hitler to control and indoctrinate German youth. It had no other redeeming value," said Shoshona Bat-Zion on a homeschoolers' blog.
American homeschoolers need to be worried, according to a WND report, because the ease with which similar restrictions on free choice could be imposed in the United States.
A Democrat Senate and a Democrat president could ratify U.N. treaties such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, or the European Convention on Human Rights, which is an offshoot of the U.S. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
That is the foundation being cited by the German government to ban homeschooling entirely, and to indoctrinate public and private school students into a sexualized, socialist society.
In the last several years, many homeschooling parents in Germany have been sentenced to prison for teaching their children in a Christian lifestyle.
Michael Farris, cofounder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, has called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect the right of parents to educate their children at home, in light of such developments in Europe.
His concern is exactly that U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a plan already accepted as law by many nations around the globe.
A homeschool advocate in Germany who works with Netzwerk-Bildungsfreifeit, earlier wrote to WND that, "We are not far away from an intolerant dictatorship in our country. Parental rights are more and more abolished. If you do not educate the way the state wants, the so-called Jugendamt (youth welfare office) is quick to check out if they can take away the custody of your children."
He is not being identified because of his position in Germany.
"As long as you practice your faith in a church building you have no problems, but as soon as you act in accordance to your faith, for example, in the education of your children, the freedom ends rapidly," he said.
The HSLDA in the past has pleaded for help for the German homeschool community. It is now repeating that plea.
"Melissa has been moved – for a third time – to a foster home in the country. The first foster family didn't want Melissa anymore because she did not 'fit.' According to Melissa, the family was apparently bothered by her reading French and translating it into German," the HSLDA said. "REQUESTED ACTION 1. Please continue to call or email the German Embassy and give them this message:
"Over 40 innocent homeschool families have been prosecuted, fined, and in some instances, had their children removed to state custody. This is an outrage. Many homeschool families are fleeing Germany to nearby European countries where homeschooling is legal. The most incredible violation of human rights is the Busekros family, whose child was put into a psychiatric ward and then removed to an undisclosed location, all for the crime of homeschooling. Germany will not long be known as a free nation if it suppresses the right to choose homeschooling."
The HSDLA said the German Embassy can be reached at:
Dr. Klaus Scharioth
Ambassador, German Embassy
4645 Reservoir Road NW
Washington, DC, 20007-1998
(202) 298-4000
The embassy can be e-mailed from its website, the HSLDA said.
And the group said the Minister of Justice in Bavaria can be given the same message:
Beate Merk
Prielmayerstr. 7
80335 Munchen
Tel. +49 89 5597 1799
And his e-mail is:
beate.merk@stmj.bayern.deThe group said letters to Melissa and her family can be sent to the following address: (Her parents have said they will try to get the letters and cards to Melissa): Schallershofer Strasse 72, 91056 Erlangen, Deutschland.
cont'd
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