Tag Archives: Country: Sweden

Baptist Press: Alan Sears, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, noted that a key benefit of ADF’s involvement in helping defend religious freedom overseas is “the crucial perspective it gives us” for defending legal rights in America.”

One News Now: Roger Kiska, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, explains the state’s point of view. “They’re absolutely oppressive with regard to parental rights. They believe that the only duty of the parents basically is to give birth and then the child belongs to the state,” he tells American Family News. “So we had known all along that this was going to be something that would have to be taken from Sweden and brought to the European level.” Kiska says the remaining option is to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which has jurisdiction over Sweden. [more]

LifeSiteNews: Roger Kiska, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel in Europe, was outraged by the court’s action. “It is beyond belief that a modern civilized country could allow such injustice to continue,” he said. “There is no evidence in the record that justifies the continued separation of this family. We will continue to fight for this family and on behalf of the principle that the European Convention condemns such acts.”

One News Now: Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Roger Kiska contends that the state wants to be the parent of all students, indoctrinating them with the state’s ideology. “I’ve heard statements in Sweden and in France recently that the role of the parent is simply to give birth to a child, and then it’s the state’s duty to educate the child,” Kiska accounts. “That’s absolutely contrary to international law and morality.”

HSLDA: Roger Kiska, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel in Europe, was outraged by the court’s action. “It is beyond belief that a modern civilized country could allow such injustice to continue,” he said. “There is no evidence in the record that justifies the continued separation of this family. We will continue to fight for this family and on behalf of the principle that the European Convention condemns such acts.”

AP: Officials in a liberal Stockholm suburb that discourages gender stereotypes have decided to open a gender-neutral changing room in a local high school to avoid students being classified as male or female.

MercatorNet.com: But Gotland (province) Social Services persisted, and managed to get a mid-level appeal court to overturn the district court ruling. Now the couple, with the aid of the US-based Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and the Alliance Defending Freedom, have taken their case to the Supreme Court of Sweden. They are being represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights. . . . Alliance Defending Freedom and HSLDA are encouraging concerned people from all over the world to participate in an HSLDA-sponsored letter-writing campaign that asks the Supreme Court of Sweden to accept the case Johansson v. Gotland Social Services and return Domenic to his parents.

Huffington Post: Home-schooling families in Europe have become a cause celebre for some U.S. conservatives. The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom is working with two Swedish home-schooling families, including Christer and Annie Johansson, who lost custody of 11-year-old Domenic when they refused to enroll him in public school.

CBN (includes video): Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home-School Legal Defense Association have asked the European court of Human Rights to hear the case of a Swedish family heavily fined for home-schooling.

weden’s highest court is being asked to free an 11-year-old boy whom government officials have held in captivity for four years because his parents home-schooled him. Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association are legal advisors to the parents, who are represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights.

WorldNetDaily: Swedish parents Annie and Christer Johansson have launched what may be their last hope to see their son again – with an appeal to the Supreme Court of Sweden to overturn a lower court’s decision to end their parental rights over homeschooling . . . he HSLDA has been working on Domenic’s case, along with officials from the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/homeschool-parents-have-1-shot-to-see-son-again/#vPLSHHFWFSdLzt1K.99

Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association have asked the European Court of Human Rights to hear the case of a Swedish family heavily fined for home-schooling their daughter.

The Local: Abortion figures in Sweden have increased since the introduction of the morning-after pill, with experts blaming the unwanted pregnancies on Swedes’ “careless” contraception habits

TIME: Until late last week one of Europe’s most progressive nations had one of the continent’s most repressive policies on transgender people. Swedish law had required all transgender people to undergo sterilization if they want to legally change their sex.

WorldNetDaily: An appeals court panel in Sweden has imposed the “death penalty” on a homeschooling family, granting the state full custody of their son, who famously was “state-napped” from a jetliner in 2009 as the family prepared to move to India. The appeals panel reversed a lower court ruling that granted Annie and Christer Johansson custody of their son, Domenic. But if the decision is not reversed again by the nation’ Supreme Court, the Johansson’s will lose their son, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, which has been working on the case with the Alliance Defending Freedom . . .

W. Bradford Wilcox at Family Scholars: So, even in Sweden, with one of the world’s strongest welfare states, children “seem to suffer” when marriage disappears.

Christian Institute: Head teachers in Sweden have been told they can take pupils to Christmas services in church – but Jesus cannot be mentioned.

Telegraph: Boys will be girls, as they say in Sweden, especially if you’re Toys R Us. The firm’s Swedish franchise has been through its Christmas catalogue and made it gender-neutral. Boys now pucker up to the camera clutching baby dolls. Girls wave guns at the reader to reassure us that females can be violent too.

HSLDA: The Social Welfare Committee responsible for keeping Domenic Johansson separated from his parents for more than three years has appealed the June 2012 court ruling that upheld Christer and Annie Johanssons’ parental rights.

Ed News: Countless tears were shed at the first Global Home Education Conference here as homeschooling parents told horror stories of having to flee vicious persecution in their home countries – mostly Sweden and Germany, but other places as well.

Religion Clause Blog: According to Chabad Lubavitch News, an appellate court in Sweden yesterday struck down a law that barred Chabad parents from home schooling their children through Chabad’s International Shluchim Online School and private lessons.

NY Times: But the doctor, Paolo Macchiarini, at the Karolinska Institute here, had a radical idea. He wanted to make Mr. Beyene a new windpipe, out of plastic and his own cells. Implanting such a “bioartificial” organ would be a first-of-its-kind procedure for the field of regenerative medicine, which for decades has been promising a future of ready-made replacement organs — livers, kidneys, even hearts — built in the laboratory.

Washington Times: Since late July Saudi media have been buzzing with reports that a 28-year-old Saudi woman has embraced Christianity and fled the country, staying initially in a church in Lebanon before moving on to Sweden. …

Turtle Bay and Beyond: A devastating blow for “Gender Theory”: the Nordic Council of Ministers (a regional inter-governmental co-operation consisting of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland) has decided to close down the NIKK Nordic Gender Institute. The NIKK had been the flagship of “Gender Theory”, providing the “scientific” basis for social and educational policies that, from the 1970s onward, had transformed the Nordic countries to become the most “gender sensitive” societies in the world.

LifeSiteNews: A Swedish high-school student recently failed a biology class for saying that homosexuality is abnormal, according to Swedish national news-site, svt.se.

Ed News: A coalition of homeschoolers and supporters arrived in the Swedish capital of Stockholm after a six-day, 120-mile “Walk to Freedom” that was staged to raise awareness about a controversial ban on home education.

ADF Blog: lmost three years ago today, an unspeakable nightmare befell a loving innocent family simply because they wanted to educate their seven-year-old son from home.

LifeSiteNews: The U.S.-based Alliance Defense Fund and Home School Legal Defense Alliance are providing legal advice. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like home schooling,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “This family’s human rights have been unimaginably violated.”

One News Now: But now, says Roger Kiska of Alliance Defense Fund, the courts have finally sided with the family, stating the unanimous and extensive testimony of friends and family favoring Christer and Annie could not be ignored. “Social services has been evil, to put it in one word,” the attorney tells OneNewsNow . . . “… It’s happening in Germany, it’s now happening in Bulgaria — and when these things happen in Europe, they tend to make their down to the United States rather quickly,” warns Kiska. “There’s been a slew of bad precedent that the United States Supreme Court and state supreme courts have taken from Europe. So I think everyone needs to be aware.” [more]

HSLDA on the Christian Newswire: ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska says the family’s human rights have been unimaginably violated. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like home schooling,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “We …

Domenic Johansson still in government captivity after three years

Mary Kassian at Baptist Press: Forget “his” and “hers.” Sweden has introduced a new, gender-neutral pronoun: “hen.” The word was added to the online version of the country’s National Encyclopedia days after International Women’s Day. (In Swedish, “he” is “han” and “she” is “hon.”) It was sparked by Sweden’s first ever gender-neutral children’s book, “Kivi och Monsterhund” (Kivi and Monsterdog), Slate.com reported. The child, “Kivi,” whose gender is non-specified, wants a dog for “hen’s” birthday.

Washington Post reports.

UPI: A Swedish health board faulted a doctor who canceled a woman’s abortion against her wishes after speaking to the woman’s husband, who asked about alternatives.

Religion Clause Blog: The Forward reported yesterday that Hannah Rosenthal, the United States special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, held a meeting earlier this week with Ilmar Reepalu, mayor of the Swedish city of Malmo, to call attention to the anti-Semitism rampant in the city and the city’s lack of adequate response to it

Europe News: There was concern over the plight of several Iranian Christian asylum seekers in Sweden Tuesday, April 24, after Swedish authorities decided to deport them despite fears they may be jailed or even executed there, Christians said.

Christian Today: Sweden, which in 2010 was recognised by the World Economic Forum as the most gender-equal country in the world, has stepped up its gender neutrality initiative by introducing a new word that refers to both boys and girls with the pronoun “hen”.

David Kramer at LewRockwell.com: A number of associations around the world have expressed their outrage at this “Soviet-style” (it is Sweden, after all) tyranny. This number includes: the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), Advocates International, the Network for Freedom in Education, the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, and the Christian Broadcasting Network (!!!).

Homeschool Heartbeat Radio: HSLDA and the Alliance Defense Fund and our Swedish attorneys hope that this signals a willingness by courts to at least look at this untenable situation for Swedish homeschoolers.

LifeSiteNews: A leader in the Swedish homeschooling movement has fled the country, saying, “the safety of my family could no longer be guaranteed.”

One News Now: Michael Donnelly of America’s Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is asking home schoolers in the homeland to contact Swedish officials and urge them to stop persecuting parents who are attempting to home school their children.

The Local: The Centre Party, Liberals (Folkpartiet) and the Moderates want single women to have access to artificial insemination treatment, and are proposing a change to current laws despite opposition from coalition partners the Christian Democrats.

Baptist Press: The U.S.-based Home School Legal Defense Association and the Alliance Defense Fund have filed a brief in a Swedish court on behalf of the Himmelstrands. “Homeschooling is legal in the United States and in many other countries only after decades of tumultuous legislative and legal conflicts,” Michael Donnelly of HSLDA said.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: In Sweden, critics of homosexuality risk being sent to jail. And the European Court of Human Rights, demonstrating once again its complete and utter failure to protect the fundamental rights enshrined in the European Rights Convention, finds that this constitutes no violation of the freedom of opinion.

The Volokh Conspiracy: The case is Vejdeland v. Sweden (Feb. 9, 2012) . . . In December 2004 the applicants [who are adults] … went to an upper secondary school (gymnasieskola) and distributed approximately a hundred leaflets by leaving them in or on the pupils’ lockers. The episode ended when the school’s principal intervened and made them leave the premises . . .

HSLDA : Himmelstrand and his wife had homeschooled their three children for multiple years before authorities in the municipality where they live denied them permission in 2008. The Himmelstrands currently face fines in excess of $26,000 in U.S. currency for their choice to homeschool. HSLDA and the Alliance Defense Fund have filed a brief in a Swedish appellate court on behalf of the family. | HSLDA press release at Christian Newswire

One News Now: Roger Kiska of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), who has been defending the Johansson family, points out that everything about Dominic’s education was legal. “Not only was home schooling legal at the time — it was limited, but it was legal — but Dominic fit into all of the circumstances in which it was legal,” he explains. “There was no evidence, no due process.”

OneNewsNow.com: “That the government should have the right to take children away from their families simply for the act of home education — that is without due process, without any real evidence gathering — that is almost a military state power,” he contends.

A recent European Court of Human Rights ruling increases the pressure on Sweden to return a 10-year-old boy to his parents after the government abducted him from his parents nearly three years ago for being home-schooled.

Religion Clause: Authorities in Gothenburg have formally notified the Namdars that they will be fined the equivalent of $2400 (US) per week if they do not enroll their children in a Swedish school by Feb. 1.

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska on the Hugh Hewitt Show. | MP3 audio 5:50 mins

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska appeared on the Zeb Bell Show. | MP3 audio 17:10 mins

The New American: The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a U.S.-based conservative legal advocacy group, noted that Edholm’s recommendation comes at a time when home school families in Sweden are under severe assault. The ADF, in partnership with another U.S. group, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), has come to the legal aid of a Swedish home school family whose nine-year-old son was abducted by the Swedish government in 2009. According to an ADF press release, Swedish officials “seized the child because they believe home schooling is an inappropriate way to raise a child and insist the government should raise [him] instead, even though home-schooling was legal in Sweden at the time he was taken into custody.

WorldNetDaily: The HSLDA also works with the Alliance Defense Fund to challenge such violations of parental rights. Roger Kiska, a European-based attorney working with the ADF, warned, “Parents have the right and authority to make decisions regarding their children’s education without government interference. Swedish policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children. Those standards include the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents, all of which recognize that parents have a fundamental right to choose what kind of education their children will receive.”

HSLDA: Roger Kiska is an ADF attorney stationed in Europe who has brought numerous cases before the European Court of Human Rights on family issues, including homeschooling. He says that the European Court of Human Rights has not been particularly supportive of homeschoolers. “The ECHR is giving aid and comfort to Sweden’s repressive home education policies. But ECHR jurisprudence and Swedish, as well as German, policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children,” Kiska said. “The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents all recognize that parents of children have a fundamental right to choose what kind of education their children will receive. We are committed to working with HSLDA and others to vindicate this right. We will stand with families like the Johanssons and Himmelstrands until we win.”

Christian Newswire: The Home School Legal Defense Association and Alliance Defense Fund and have applied to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of one family whose child was abducted by the government in 2009 and have filed a brief in a Swedish appellate court on behalf of another family fined an amount equivalent to $26,000.

ADF, HSLDA say changes would violate int’l legal standards on human rights

WorldNetDaily: Michael Donnelly, director of international relations at Home School Legal Defense Association, says this decision offers a glimmer of light in the case. “I am hopeful that this is the beginning of the end to the horrific treatment these people have suffered at the hands of Swedish authorities over the past two and a half years,” he said. “The Johansson family have endured unspeakable tyranny over their decision to homeschool their child and then to attempt to leave Sweden. Sweden’s behavior in this case has been shocking.” His organization and representatives of the Alliance Defense Fund are pursuing a case over the custody battle before the European Court of Human Rights

EuropeNews: Interview with Kamal Fahmi, director of Set My People Free (10th of December 2011, Stockholm). What is the purpose of today’s event? Today, actually is the international day of human rights. This is one of the reasons we chose this day, and the second one also, that it is that we give the Nobel prize, so there is a lot of media attention, and what we want to bring the attention of the people to is the apostasy law in Islam, which not many people know about. Islam is a one way religion. If you are a Muslim you can not change your belief. And this is very sad that this is happening in the 21st century.

ADF Attorney Benjamin Bull at Townhall : All Domenic Johansson really wants for Christmas is his life back . . . In this season, as so many of us are thinking – as we should – of the children who don’t have toys or a turkey for Christmas, let us also remember those children who long not just for something to eat or play with, but for the freedom to honor the deepest convictions of their souls.

HSLDA : Christer and Annie Johansson have won a small but hopeful victory in their quest to regain custody of their nine-year-old son Domenic who was taken from them over 2 years ago in a dramatic raid while the family was seated on an airliner departing the Nordic country. Ruby Harrold-Claesson, the couple’s attorney, reported to HSLDA that the Gotland District Court ruled in favor of the Johanssons, allowing them to retain their parental rights of Domenic . . . HSLDA continues to work with the Alliance Defense Fund and Harrold-Claesson at the European Court of Human Rights representing the family in their lawsuit against Sweden.

Wendy Wright at Turtle Bay and Beyond: A researcher from Sweden argues that if two parents are good, then why not three? In a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Daniela Cutas is heavy on “may” and “might” conjectures and – as you’d expect – light on any evidence. As timing would have it, Cutas’ silliness was slapped down by a Canadian court when it ruled recently that polygamy is detrimental to women, children and society – basing its decision on solid evidence.

Bioedge.org: One parent is good. Two parents are better. Three parents might be better still. So argues a researcher from Sweden, who published a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics on multiparenting. Daniela Cutas, of the University of Gothenberg and the Karolinska Institute, challenged “the necessity of the max-two parents framework”.

Baptist Press: “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like homeschooling,” ADF legal counsel Roger Kiska said. “That’s bad enough. But now the state is going even further by attempting to get the parents out of the way altogether. This simply cannot stand.”

CNN: He occasionally got a spanking from mom, or a swat on the rear and a stern look from his dad. But he remembers one day when his kindergarten teacher, school principal and a social worker came to their home. They worried Ian wasn’t fitting in; they wanted to talk about the “abuse.”

WorldNetDaily: hat word had come from officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which along with the Alliance Defense Fund already has elevated the dispute involving Christer and Annie Johannson and their son, Domenic, of Sweden to the European Court of Human Rights.

The Local: The highly popular church built near the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi in Northern Sweden might soon be joined by an ice mosque by next winter, if all goes according to plan.

C-Fam.org: The chemical abortion pill, more formally referred to as medical or medication abortion, has received a major push by international reproductive rights groups particularly in geographic regions where abortion may be legally restricted or otherwise not accessible.

NCPA Policy Digest: Fiscal illusion is a term that is applied when the public largely misunderstands key tax and spending parameters, which distort their financial and governmental beliefs. Looking specifically to Sweden, Bjorn Wallace and Tino Sanandaji, Ph.D. students at the Stockholm School of Economics and the University of Chicago, respectively, examine fiscal illusion in that country.

OneNewsNow.com: Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Roger Kiska is defending the family in the European Court of Human Rights, which has not been friendly to the couple so far. “We’re asking the court to immediately reverse … Sweden’s decision, saying it’s highly illegal to take away the parental rights for this family, and it’s also very damaging to the best interest of the child, to Dominic,” Kiska reports.

News from The Associated Press: A Swedish court on Tuesday convicted 23 women and one man of child pornography offenses in what investigators called a unique case because of the number of female perpetrators.

Crosswalk Religion News Summaries: The Home School Legal Defense Association and the Alliance Defense Fund have been working to bring attention to the case and encourage the Swedish government to release Domenic back to his family. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like homeschooling,” said ADF legal counsel Roger Kiska. “That’s bad enough. But now the state is going even further by attempting to get the parents out of the way altogether. This simply cannot stand.”

HSLDA on Christian Newswire: Both ADF and HSLDA are currently asking for letters to be written in an attempt to renew attention to the family’s case and to encourage Swedish officials to release Domenic back to his family. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like homeschooling. That’s bad enough. But now the state is going even further by attempting to get the parents out of the way altogether,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “This simply cannot stand. We will do everything in our power to help reunite this family.”

Jerry Newcombe at Crosswalk: A tape of his sermon was sent to the police, who then listened to it and determined that he had indeed committed a hate crime for saying homosexual conduct is sin. He was actually sentenced to jail, but spared from prison only when attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund, an American religious liberties legal group, went over to Sweden and successfully defended his case.

WorldNetDaily: That word has come from officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which along with the Alliance Defense Fund already has elevated the dispute involving Christer and Annie Johannson and their son, Domenic, of Sweden to the Europe Court of Human rights.