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German Police Physically Force Home Schooled Children to Public School

Police officials, in an incredibly inconsiderate manner, forced crying children into police car

By Gudrun Schultz

BISSINGEN, Germany, October 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - German police have resorted to physically dragging home schooled children to school, a report from WorldNetDaily revealed this morning, in the latest assault on families attempting to educate their children themselves.

“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,” a report from the Network for Freedom in Education stated. The NFE describes itself as politically and religiously neutral.

German authorities have relied on Nazi-era legislation that outlawed home education to prevent parents from keeping their children out of the public school system for religious or social convictions. The law forbade home education in order to prevent “the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions.”

Joerg Grosseluemern, spokesman for the NFE, said the Remeike family “have 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.”

In 2002, German officials said “forcible methods” generally are “not in the long-term interests of either the children or the police,” the NFE said, pointing out that the previous education minister, Annette Schavan, said such policies were unnecessary because “…the children are generally not lacking in any other respects.”

“The family involved emphasizes that their children are neither truant nor school deniers, which are the cases for which such measures were intended,” the NFE said. “The Remeike family is fulfilling their children’s right to an education by educating them at home, with the support of teachers fro[m] a distance learning academy, which also supplies the necessary material.”

“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 Network condemned the “degrading” actions of the police and called on the Mayor of Bissingen and the Office for Education to put a stop to the “blatant breach” of rights.

The episode is the latest in Germany’s ongoing assault  on parents attempting to home school their children. In September German police broke into the home of a Christian family and arrested Katherina Plett for home schooling her children, issuing her a 10 day prison sentence. 

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of Germany’s ban on home schooling in September, after German parents Fritz and Marianna Konrad filed a human rights complaint arguing that the ban violated their right to ensure their children were educated “in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”

The European Court disagreed, stating that “Parents may not refuse the right to education of a child on the basis of their convictions.”

The Court decision upheld the findings of the German Administrative Courts that the couple’s children “were unable to foresee the consequences of their parents decision for home education because of their young age.”

Read WorldNetDaily coverage:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52603

See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:

Germany Uses Nazi Era Law to Imprison Mom for Homeschooling; Family Flees to Austria
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06091407.html

European Human Rights Court Rules State May Deny Parents Right to Home School Their Children
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06092708.html

POLICE CRACKDOWN ON HOME-SCHOOLING IN GERMANY
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2000/jul/00072604.html

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