Home school dads imprisoned in Germany

We cherish our freedom to educate our children at home but families in other countries face huge hurdles in home schooling. From Home Educators Association of Virginia (HEAV):

Fathers Imprisoned for Refusing to Send Their Children to Sex-Education Classes

Eight Christian fathers are being imprisoned in Germany for refusing to send their children to sex-education classes. Read all the details at the link above, and lift up our brothers and sisters in Germany. What a reminder to us to not take our freedoms for granted!

Bob at The Journey touched on this subject earlier this month.

German home school parents sentenced to 3 mos in jail ... for teaching their kids

Their crime? They were parents who educated their children at home ... who cared too much about their children's education ... hands-on parents participating in building a strong foundation for their children.

Their punishment? Three months in jail, according to German authorities. World Net Daily reported:

A newspaper reporter in Hesse, Harald Sagawe, said the parents previously paid fines because "they did not send their children to school, for religious reasons."

He continued, "The parents, Christians who closely follow the Bible, teach their children themselves. Two years ago the court had also dealt with the Dudeks. That case, dealing with the payment of a fine, had been dropped."

Judge Peter Hobbel, who imposed the fines, criticized school officials for refusing to answer the family's request for approval of their "private school."

But Arno Meissner, the chief of the government's local education department, said he would enforce the mandatory school attendance law against the family, and he said he resented the judge's interference. [emphasis added]

The education department apparently has no interest in offering an opportunity for parents to educate their children at home, thereby leaving no avenue other than to break away and disobey the law for those who do not agree with the state government-run schools.

Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) out of Purcellville, VA, has followed this case from the beginning:

Unfortunately, it appears that the issue for this German judge, and too many others, is less about academic preparation and respecting the rights of parents and the family and more about asserting its autocratic will on families who wish to educate their children at home in accordance with their conscience.

After reading the judges’s opinion, Mr. Dudek [the home school parent] said that he couldn’t believe the hardline totalitarianism it represented. Mr. Dudek reported that this judge referred to the infamous Konrad case decided by the German high court in 2006 that said that homeschooling could not be allowed because it would lead to the creation of “parallel societies.”

World Net Daily also notes:

Practical Homeschool Magazine has 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."

Even the family's plans to move from the area will not prevent prosecution, according to the German government. Reportedly:

HSLDA [Home School Legal Defense Association] officials estimate there are some 400 homeschool families in Germany, virtually all of them either forced into hiding or facing court actions.

Just weeks ago, WND reported the Dudeks warned about a new German federal law that also gives family courts the authority to take custody of children "as soon as there is a suspicion of child abuse," which is how the nation's courts have defined homeschooling.

An outpouring of support and encouragement for the Dudek family has come from around the world. Hitler? Government interference with families? And to think there are some who believe America should be more like Europe....

Parents in Germany jailed for home schooling....

There are parents who neglect their children ... parents who are drug addicts and whose children become drug addicts ... parents who beat their children ... parents who abuse their children....

And then we have parents who care enough to educate their children at home only to be arrested by the German government and fined. Not content with fining them, they have now been ordered to serve three months in jail.

For what? Caring too much?

Count your blessings that you live in the United States of America where home schooling is allowed ... except in California where they recently ruled only parents with teaching certificates could educate their children at home. We must guard and stand up for our freedoms because they can be yanked away from us.

World News Daily is reporting on this breaking case today. Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) located in Purcellville, Virginia, has been following this situation for a year. Staff attorney Mike Donnelly said:

"Words escape me, it's unconscionable, incredible, shocking. They'll appeal of course."

He added the prosecutors seemed to say, "You guys are rebelling against the state. We're going to punish you."

A flashback to Germany's dark past? World Net Daily reports:

The attitude is typical of some officials in Germany, where homeschooling has been stamped on since the Nazi era, critics say.

Practical Homeschool Magazine has 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."

History can repeat itself.

Germany has a history of going after home schooling families, and some families have fled Germany. One 15-year-old girl was taken by police to a psychiatric hospital because she was home schooled, and the courts approved it.

If we do not stand up for them ... who is to say we would not be next?