September 7th, 2009 LAIGLESFORUM | 7 Comments »
Home schooled boy grabbed by police on plane in Sweden
Help reunite this persecuted family!
By Don Hank
Christer and Annie Johannson are a Swedish couple from Gotland that attempted last year to home school their son Dominic, a bright and happy 7 year old, just prior to their leaving the country to take up residence in India. They made all the right moves, informing the school of their plans.
Home schooling was — and still is — legal in Sweden (there is discussion about banning it) and when Christer asked the principal of the local elementary school if he could supply some teaching materials, he agreed to do so.
But in the meantime, some locals decided that these parents should not be allowed to do this. The reasons for this are no more clear than they are legal, but Christer was once involved in an alternative on-line news mag that expressed politically incorrect ideas and as near as anyone can tell, this was the reason his home schooling plans were opposed.
When Christer went back to the principal to get the materials, he was told that he would not supply any materials and that Dominic must go to school.
The Johannsons insisted that the principal keep his promise. The drama quickly escalated and soon the local social services imposed a fine of 250 kronor per day that Dominic was not in school. This did not intimidate the Johannsons, because they knew they were within their rights under Swedish law.
But the Gotland authorities unanimously stood against them and eventually the court got involved and decided that while the school board had violated some of the parents’ rights, they still would have to send Dominic to school.
The Johannsons were on the plane, which was due to leave the gate in one minute when the Swedish police descended on it. Like commandos, they stormed the plane and took Dominic into custody, without stating any reason for doing so. Dominic was so traumatized he later threw up. Annie later fell unconscious to the floor of the police station. The police did nothing to help. Four days later, she stopped breathing in front of social workers, who also did absolutely nothing to help.
Can you even imagine this insanity?
The full story is given below (NOTE: the English version is below the Swedish version), but please come back after you have read it so you can help get Dominic back home where he belongs:
http://vaken.se/modules/smartsection/print.php?itemid=511
I called Christer some time after this happened and we had a long talk. He had not seen Dominic in a while, was only allowed short visits and had spent the night before and most of the that day crying. Annie has been in bed with a heart condition that was exacerbated by the abduction of their son. (Tonight Christer emailed me that he had fallen into a state of semiconsciousness with an irregular heart rhythm.)
I was very impressed by what a kind and gentle person Christer was. He told me “ever since I was born I have only wanted to help people.” He described how he had traveled to help earthquake victims in India in 2000. He had, unfortunately, been thwarted by the large unruly crowds and was unable to help. I am not easily fooled, but I knew this was a genuinely good man with a kind heart. We both broke down crying when I ended the conversation telling him that God loves him, Dominic and Annie, that this was part of God’s plan and that everything would be all right.
I promised that because I know my readers and know that you will help.
After this conversation, I wrote an email to the Swedish authorities, and would like you to do the same. Please, if you have limited time, just write in the subject line “Please return Dominic Johannson to his parents. Thanks”
Dear Reader, Christer and Annie are actually giving you a rare privilege to help reunite a frightened little boy with his parents who love him with all their hearts. Remember what Jesus said: inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.
These words are just as true today as they were 2,000 years ago. God will bless you for just taking a few moments out of your busy day and sending an email to the Swedish authorities pleading their case. Pray that God will give you the words to write and then pray that the icy hearts of the authorities will be melted by reading these words.
Here are the emails of some of the authorities involved. The first two, Sofi Rosenqvist and Caroline Palmqvist, are the ones responsible for the decision to separate Dominic from his parents. The third is Lena Celion, a politician who thinks that kidnapping was the right thing to do. Apparently, according to her statements in the interview, she thinks children have a right to go to school but not necessarily to be with their parents and definitely not to be home-schooled by people who care about them rather than taught by strangers teaching for money.
Please tell them your opinion of their thoughtless actions, but be as polite as you can. YES, THEY ALL READ ENGLISH!
Pattern in Swedish here:
Hej pa er,
var vänlig och ge Dominic Johansson tilbaka till sin föräldrar.
Hälsningar fran USA
The 4th is the address for a politician who may be able to help. To save time you can copy them all into your browser at once.
sofi.rosenqvist@gotland.se;
caroline.palmqvist@gotland.se;
lena.celion@gotland.se;
marika.gardell@gotland.se;
Here is some contact info for Swedish government officials:
http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/2052
I especially recommend the Swedish Ministry of Education and Research. Send at least one email to the Minister of Education, but there are others too here:
http://www.sweden.gov.se./sb/d/2133
Then if you have time left, please send a few words of encouragement to Christer and Annie:
christer@mepprograms.org
Finally here is a petition supporting the right to homeschool in Sweden:
http://rohus.nu/?English_information:Petition
Now, there is one more job and it is the most important: Pray that God will have His way here and that this experience, as terrible as it has been for this family, will bring them closer together and will bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, who, as you recall, told the stoners “whoever is without sin, cast the first stone,” and THEN said to the woman: “go and sin no more.”
God bless!
Don
My letter to the Swedish authorities:
I am a friend of Christer Johannson and have seen several documents pertaining to his case, namely, the seizure of his son Dominic by the Socjaltjänst in Gotland.
It is obvious that the authorities have misrepresented the Johannsons’ case to the public and I would like to help shed light on this.
Please consider, for example, the following misleading article:
http://www.helagotland.se/nyheter/artikel.aspx?ArticleId=5350456
In an attempt to whitewash perpetrators in a sensational case of child abuse, this article ignores important facts of the case, such as the following.
- The Johannsons originally requested study material so that Dominic could be temporarily home-schooled in anticipation of their permanent move to India, and the school originally agreed to supply this material.
- Inexplicably, the principal changed his mind and the school board started to fine the Johannsons exorbitant amounts of money for not sending their son to school, even though they knew that the parents had properly applied for homeschooling materials and were soon moving to India. I understand that, unlike the former Soviet Union, Sweden has no law that bans citizens from moving away, so once the authorities were notified that the Johannsons were leaving, they should have let them go. This would have obviated all the unnecessary trauma to Dominic and his parents.
- The Johannsons then asked for a meeting with the school board, to which they are entitled by law under such circumstances. The person in charge, Lena Celion, failed to meet with Dominic’s parents, in violation of the law.
- Later, Mrs. Celion was quoted in the above-linked news article saying a child has the right to go to school. However, this is misleading, because it suggests that the parents denied Dominic an education, whereas they only decided to move to the mother’s country, where the boy would no doubt have a right to citizenship and would no longer be under Swedish jurisdiction.
I remind you that a few years ago, at the time of the great tsunami, it was widely reported that Swedish pedophiles had been flocking to Thailand as a place to have sex with boys, some of them quite young.
At that time many people here in America were outraged that the authorities in Sweden had done nothing to stop these evil criminals.
Now in an ironic twist, the Swedish government is trying to stop good, loving parents from traveling to Asia to give their child a better life and to steep him in a culture that will teach him diversity first hand — something he could never accomplish in Sweden with its rigid attitudes and dictatorial polices. Many of us are starting to see a pattern here: In Sweden, pedophilia is viewed with tolerance, but parents who wish to give their children the best possible life are considered criminals. Do you not see something terribly wrong here?
I am absolutely baffled at these actions on the part of the Swedish government. How can they be justified?
I ask that particularly in view of the fact that, as I understand it, Dominic vomited when the police seized him and separated him violently from his parents. The police apparently did nothing to intervene. From what I have learned about child psychology, one of the most clear-cut signs that a child is being severely abused is vomiting. Clearly, the authorities abused this child.
Now, imagine a child whose loving parents come to school and force him to come home with them for the day. Can you imagine a child under these circumstances being so traumatized by his parents that he throws up? Of course you can’t. Yet the authorities continue to insist that what they did was good for the child.
The fact that the people who made the decision occupy positions of power in government does nothing to mitigate their guilt. Rather it exacerbates the heinousness of the crime they committed.
Further, instead of remedying the severe trauma done to Dominic by quickly reuniting him with his parents, the authorities further traumatize him by banning further contact with the parents and allowing only very short “visits.” It is my understanding that Dominic, who was very close to his parents and had a warm and loving relationship, was so traumatized that he hardly responded to his father’s first words when they were reunited under very strained and difficult circumstances. This is a clear indication that the child was brainwashed to alienate him from his own parents — another instance of cruel child abuse.
Despite the misleading article linked above, there is nothing noble about this act on the part of the officials, no excuse whatsoever. They pose as champions of children’s rights but that is hypocritical. No human being with a beating heart could call their action by any other name except kidnapping and no one who knows the Johannsons’ story will call it “protecting children” or think of these pompous officials as heroes. Through their incompetence, these authorities may well have destroyed this child’s trust in others for the rest of his life! Every one of them deserves to be fired.
What strikes me about this case is that, here, for the first time, a country other than Germany has adopted such an inhuman approach to ‘child protection.’ In Germany, there are several grassroots groups (I am a member of one) that have arisen to oppose these tactics and it is common knowledge that the authorities there (das Jugendamt) began to use these cruel tactics around the time of the Third Reich.
Now my question to the Swedish government is this:
Why are you reverting to the cruel tactics of the Third Reich? Do you not have the imagination, natural kindness and good will to devise a family-friendly and child-friendly way to deal with unique and special families like the Johannsons? Can’t you tolerate a dissenting viewpoint? After all, the Johannsons represent true diversity, not the stultifying politically correct type that is rammed down children’s throats in schools throughout Europe by ideologically indoctrinated teachers, many of whom have never traveled abroad or lived in a foreign culture.
Finally, is Hitler not officially condemned throughout Europe? If so, then why does Sweden — like Germany — now wish to resurrect his cruel policies that led to so much misery in Europe?
We thought we had rid the world of him. But now it seems he is back.
Sincerely,
Don Hank
