Parents losing custody for homeschooling kids
'Law seen as logical step in carving up family rights'
Posted: May 12, 2008
9:20 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A German couple already being threatened with jail time because they have been homeschooling their children say their nation has taken a turn for the worse, with a new federal law that gives family courts the authority to take custody of children "as soon as there is a suspicion of child abuse," which is how that nation's courts have defined homeschooling.

"The new law is seen as a logical step in carving up family rights after a federal court had decided that homeschooling was an abuse of custody," said a letter from Jurgen Dudek to officials with the U.S.-based Home School Legal Defense Association, an international advocacy organization in support of homeschooling.

It was about a year ago when WND reported a prosecutor in the German state of Hesse was seeking three-month prison terms for Jurgen Dudek and his wife, Rosemarie, the parents of six children, even after they already had paid a series of fines.

Officials with Netzwork-Bildungsfreiheit, a German homeschool advocacy group, said the prosecutor, unsatisfied with the fines, wanted 90-day terms in custody for the parents.