A Home Educating family from Germany has just been granted political asylum in the USA. This is highly significant:

Homeschooling Family Granted Political Asylum

Immigration Judge Says Germany Violating Basic Human Rights

In a case with international ramifications, Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman granted the political asylum application of a German homeschooling family. The Romeikes are Christians from Bissinggen, Germany, who fled persecution in August 2008 to seek political asylum in the United States. The request was granted January 26 after a hearing was held in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 21.

“We can’t expect every country to follow our constitution,” said Judge Burman. “The world might be a better place if it did. However, the rights being violated here are basic human rights that no country has a right to violate.”

Burman added, “Homeschoolers are a particular social group that the German government is trying to suppress. This family has a well-founded fear of persecution…therefore, they are eligible for asylum…and the court will grant asylum.”

In his ruling, Burman said that the scariest thing about this case was the motivation of the government. He noted it appeared that rather than being concerned about the welfare of the children, the government was trying to stamp out parallel societies—something the judge called “odd” and just plain “silly.” In his order the judge expressed concern that while Germany is a democratic country and is an ally, he noted that this particular policy of persecuting homeschoolers is “repellent to everything we believe as Americans.”

The italics are my emphasis.

Of course, this is exactly what is happening in the UK, with its new fascist law. Under this new law, if a family in the UK fails to apply for a state license to home educate, the quality of home education is not to be taken into account in any proceedings, a home education license is to be automatically denied, and an School Attendance Order is to be issued.

This is not the action of people who are interested in the welfare or education of children, it is the act of people whose sole concern is that everyone is registered.

‘Embarrassing for Germany’

“This decision finally recognizes that German homeschoolers are a specific social group that is being persecuted by a Western democracy,” said Mike Donnelly, staff attorney and director of international relations for Home School Legal Defense Associaton. “It is embarrassing for Germany, since a Western nation should uphold basic human rights, which include allowing parents to raise and educate their own children. This judge understood the case perfectly, and he called Germany out. We hope this decision will cause Germany to stop persecuting homeschoolers,” he added.

The persecution of homeschoolers in Germany has been intensifying over the past several years. They are regularly fined thousands of dollars, threatened with imprisonment, or have the custody of their children taken away simply because they choose to home educate.

The Romeikes expressed relief when they heard the decision.

“We are so grateful to the judge for his ruling,” said Uwe Romeike. “We know many people, especially other German homeschoolers, have been praying for us. Their prayers and ours have been answered. We greatly appreciate the freedom to homeschool we now have in America and will be building our new life here,” he added.

Donnelly testified at the hearing on January 21, telling the immigration Judge that homeschoolers are persecuted all over Germany.

‘Ignoring the Truth’

“There is no safety for homeschoolers in Germany,” Donnelly said. “The two highest courts in Germany have ruled that it is acceptable for the German government to ‘stamp out’ homeschoolers as some kind of ‘parallel society.’ The reasoning is flawed. The fact is that homeschoolers are not a parallel society. Valid research shows that homeschoolers excel academically and socially. German courts are simply ignoring the truth that exists all over the world where homeschooling is practiced. They need to look beyond their own borders.”

In 2003 the highest administrative court in Germany, which interprets its federal Constitution, ruled in the Konrad case that it was permissable for parents who have jobs that require them to travel—such as circus performers and musicians—to homeschool, but homeschooling was prohibited for parents who wanted to for reasons of conscience. The highest criminal court said in the Paul-Plett case in 2006 that the government was allowed to take custody of children whose parents want to homeschool for reasons of conscience.

Reasons of conscience, and your right to act by their motivation is an essential freedom that everyone has. It is the same for conscientious objectors, people who will not eat meat, etc etc. For a german court to rule in this way, that it is OK for people to home educate for reasons related to MONEY but not conscience, is an accurate indicator of the pure evil that resides in the bosoms of Germans. And once again, this is not just the German government that is on trial here; just as it was in the 1930's the German people cannot claim that "I know nothing" A German family has FLED due to this persecution. They are all culpable. PERIOD.

Donnelly challenged the reasoning of the German courts.

“It is ridiculous for German courts to say that homeschooling is allowed if you have practical reasons but disallowed if you have conscientious reasons,” Donnelly said. “This is simply about the German state trying to coerce ideological uniformity in a way that is frighteningly reminiscent of past history. Homeschooling is a growing social movement all over the world, and the Germans want to stamp it out based on a fabricated notion that homeschoolers are a ‘parallel society.’ Germany’s treatment of homeschooling families is worthy of condemnation from the international community. I am proud that a United States immigration judge recognized the truth of what is happening in Germany and has rendered this favorable decision for the Romeike family.”

German homeschoolers have been organizing and trying to draw the attention of German politicians. It has been difficult. Juergen Dudek is a homeschooling father who had been sentenced to 90 days in jail for homeschooling, but whose sentence was reduced to a $300 fine. He noted that officials in Germany have no appreciation for homeschoolers who think differently than the state.

‘Send a Loud Message’

“It is incredible to me that these officials give absolutely no weight to our faith or other conscientious objection to attendance at the public schools,” said Dudek. “We have had a number of families who are not homeschoolers, but who know that the German school system is failing, who called us to encourage us. In our re-hearing the judge issued a decision reducing our sentence from jail to a fine but was totally dismissive of our reasons for wanting to homeschool. We have always been encouraged by the support of American homeschoolers, and we hope that this decision will send a loud message to the German people that what our country is doing is wrong.”

A board member of the Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit, an organization working for freedom for homeschoolers, said that the ruling would be helpful to homeschoolers in Germany.

“This decision reveals to the rest of the world that the German state acts outside the mainstream of Western democracies. Germany is in the company of countries like China, North Korea and others where fundamental human rights are not respected. Germany’s behavior exposes the totalitarian character of the German school law that takes away a parent’s right to educate their children. A decision on behalf of the Romeikes puts blame on the German government and is a serious warning to Germans officials to change their policies and further accept the rights of the parents. We hope that the decision will send a clear message to authorities in Germany to make changes right away!”

Mike Smith, president of HSLDA, also applauded the decision.

“It’s recognition that the German state is persecuting homeschoolers,” he said. “We are pleased to have been able to support this courageous family, and we hope and pray that this decision will have a decisive effect on German policy makers who should change their laws to recognize parents’ rights to educate their own children.”

http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/201001260.asp

What this jugement says is that Germany is an illiberal and unfree country, where illegitimate and immoral Nazi era laws, rather than being removed from the statute books, are being enforced with a ferocity, zeal, fervour, glee and intensity worthy of the original Nazis.

This Jugement means that any worker from the evil Jugendamt who tries to come to the USA to kidnap Germans on this most absurd of pretexts will be told in no uncertain terms to go back to Germany. Contrast this with the shameful way that France treats Germans on the run from the Nazis.

This story is going to cause Germans to re-assess their perfect society to which no parallel is to be allowed. This judge is calling all of Germany a state that is not fit for free people.

The Swedes should look very seriously at their Utopia and how the world perceives them; what is for sure now, is that any Swedish family that wants to escape their fascist government now has a country where they can escape to and be guaranteed that they will be protected. All they have to do is get on the plane without having their children kidnapped before it takes off.

The Romeikes are going to find that they have landed on their feet. They are now in a country that not only accepts Home Education, but it is also a place where there are millions of Home Educators. They will have a great Home Ed social life. In the USA Home Educators are highly organised; it is a place where there are services and publishers that will be happy and eager to serve them. The Universities are competing to attract Home Educated people to become their pupils. It is a place where Home Education and its practitioners is not a sponge cake soaked in bitter and foul ideologies where irrational, negative, serf minded and noxious people are desperate to control others whilst demanding freedom for themselves.

And best of all, they will not have to be constantly looking over their shoulders… it’s a place where they can be free!

Should they be foolish enough to set foot in Europe, they can expect to have their children kidnapped on the spot of course.

FURTHERMORE

Read this shameful article in Der Spiegel, which shows that the German public and in this case, the press, are completely culpable:

Religious Persecution?
German Home-Schoolers Granted Political Asylum in US

Why the question mark? These people are being persecuted because they are Christians. PERIOD.

A family of evangelical Christians who said they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs in Germany have been granted political asylum in the US. The couple fled to Tennessee so they could home-school their five children, which is illegal in Germany.

They did not ‘say they were being persecuted’, they WERE being persecuted!

Most asylum seekers in the US tend to flee wars or dictatorships, but one German family moved to the American South in 2008 because they believed they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. On Tuesday an immigration judge in Tennessee agreed, and granted them political asylum.

A shameful, Nazi law promoting scumbag wrote this article. CLEARLY they did not BELIEVE they were being persecuted, they WERE being persecuted, and that is why they were granted asylum.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, who are evangelical Christians, say they were forced to go the the US because they wanted to educate their five children at home, something that is illegal in Germany.

Judge Lawrence Burman issued the ruling on Tuesday in Memphis, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, which is representing the Romeikes.

The family left Germany after several run-ins with authorities.

They FLED Germany, to avoid being fined, imprisoned and having their children kidnapped by the state. That is a little different from ‘leaving Germany’.

The parents had ignored repeated orders to send their children to school.

As is their duty and right. The writer inserts this as if it is a proper pretext for the law to act.

German state constitutions require parents to send their children to public or private schools and they can face fines or even imprisonment if they don’t comply.

Now this Nazi is trying to put a spin on the true origin of the law, Hitler, by saying that ‘German state constitutions’ require school attendance. This shameful lack of acknowledgement of the origin of this evil law makes the writer complicit in it and the persecution of this family and all other Home Educating families in Germany.

In October 2006, police came to the Romeike home and took the children to school.

This is not right, understandable, moral or defensible. That it is stated as a plain fact is nauseating.

In November 2007 Germany’s highest appellate court ruled that in severe cases of non-compliance, social services could even remove children from home.

‘Severe cases of non-compliance’… is that all it is? ZIEG HIEL!

Uwe Romeike told the Associated Press that the 2007 ruling convinced him and his wife that “we had to leave the country.” The curriculum in public schools over the past few decades has been “more and more against Christian values,” he said.

A decent parent.

‘The Freedom to Choose’

Lutz Görgens, a German Consul General in Atlanta, Georgia, said in an e-mail statement that German parents had a range of educational options for their children. Mandatory school attendance in Germany ensures a high standard of learning for all children, he said.

This is a lie, and a distraction. No matter what schools are on offer anywhere, the parent has the ABSOLUTE RIGHT to educate their child in any way they see fit, and this is not the affair of the state in a free country.

“Parents may chose between public, private and religious schools, including those with alternative curricula like Waldorf or Montessori schools,” said Görgens.

If you cannot choose no school, you have no choice. Only a brainwashed Nazi boosting official like Lutz Görgens could put forward this rationalisation.

But Romeike was not comfortable sending his children to public school anymore. He said three eldest children had had problems with violence, bullying and peer pressure. “I think it’s important for parents to have the freedom to choose the way their children can be taught,” he said.

The couple took the kids out of school in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg in 2006 and were fined around €70,000 ($100,000).

Par for the course; the state dolls out theft, followed by violence.

In 2008 Romeike, a music teacher, sold his collection of pianos and rented out his home in the village of Bissingen. The family now live in Morristown, Tennessee, in the so-called Bible Belt. Like many of their neighbors they teach their children at home.

And MILLIONS OF OTHER AMERICANS you pathetic beast.

The decision on the family’s political asylum could still be overturned if the US government appeals the ruling. But Mike Donnelly, the attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association, said he hopes Tuesday’s ruling will influence public opinion in Germany — which is part of the reason his group offered to represent the Romeikes, he said.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,674312,00.html

First of all, why would the US Government appeal this ruling? On what grounds?

Once the news of this gets out, it is unlikely that anyone in the US will go against this family. The millions of Home Schoolers in the USA will make such a deafening noise (or at least, in a perfect world that is what would happen) no politician would DARE call for this family to be sent back to the reich.

SHAME SHAME SHAME on DER SPIEGEL!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Home Schooling, Post Tipping Point, Someone Clever Said, Yes yes yes!.