WND: Father Set Free

Father jailed for visit with son set free

'Released today, after 2 terrible months!'

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Posted: January 22, 2011
12:40 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

A Swedish father who was jailed by authorities for taking his son, in state custody because social services workers worried he was being homeschooled, home for a visit has been released from his incarceration.
Word came to WND tonight via an e-mail from Christer Johansson, who said, "I was released from jail today, after 2 terrible months! … When the judge read the verdict, he said...

Read more: Father jailed for visit with son set free http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=254093#ixzz1BmSJfFYS

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Johasson Released from Custody Today
Court Ordered Forensic Psychological Evaluation finds Johansson Psychologically Healthy

An obvious confident and happy child before Social Services

We've received word that Christer Johansson was released from police custody today immediately following a court hearing which was held as a continuance of the previous hearing of December 20, 2010. The original December 20th hearing was held as a result of an impulsive act on behalf of Johansson when on November 22, 2010, he took his son Domenic home, without permission, from a state supervised visit. According to Chapter 4 section 2 of the Criminal Code, this is punishable with prison for a minimum of one and maximum of ten years. Removing a child under fifteen years of age from the social services can constitute a crime against freedom or the promotion of escape and is punishable with fines or a prison sentence of up to one year. 

During the December 20th hearing, the presiding judge, Lagman Mikael Mellqvist, withheld sentencing until Johansson had undergone a lengthy forensic psychological analysis. That analiysis, completed and submitted to the courts just this week, found Mr. Johansson to be psychologically sound.

An obviously stressed and less confident child months after living with strangers in foster care.

This psychological finding is in direct opposition to the accusations made against Johansson by Gotland Social Services during both the December 2009 and September 2010 hearings to determine if Domenic should be returned to his parents or remain a ward of the Swedish state. In both court hearings, the Johanssons provided psychological reports stating Mr. Johansson was without a psychological diagnosis. However, Gotland Social Services continues to insist that Mr. Johansson suffers from a narcissistic disorder, while independent psychological assessments find him psychologically healthy. And now, in today's criminal proceedings the lengthy forensic psychological assessment, has found Mr. Johansson free of any psychological disorder.

Based upon those findings, Judge Mellqvist found it within reason to release Mr. Johansson, who went home today. We will receive more information as we receive it. In the meantime, the Johanssons continue to need your support and prayers as they continue their fight against Sweden for the freedom of their son. 

Annie, Christer and Domenic Johansson's nightmare began in 2008 while the family made plans to  move to India, Annie's home country and where her entire family still resides. Rather than enroll their only child in the Swedish public school, only to be interrupted in the middle of the school session due to the impending move, the couple decided to home school then 7 year old Domenic and await their arrival in India to enroll him in school there. However, the local school principal, who holds a hostile attitude toward home schooling, as well as Gotland Social Services would not agree to the family's educational plans for their son and a legal fight ensued throughout Domenic's first school year, culminating in hefty fines for each day Domenic was not in school. 

Domenic's mother, Annie, holds a Master's Degree in English, as well as several other degrees and diplomas. Mrs. Johansson successfully home schooled Domenic during his first grade even while the legal battle swirled around them. In April of 2009, the family was taken to court for the unpaid fines. The judge in that hearing found in favor of the Johanssons and Visby Social Services were ordered to stop fining the family.

In a June 2009 published article regarding the Johansson matter, chair of Sweden's department of Children and Education Lena Celion made it perfectly clear that Annie and Christer's parental right to manage the education of their child was not to be granted. Instead, Celion said it is Domenic's right to be enrolled in school, and the municipality is exercising its duty by forcing the family to enroll the boy, even though the family clearly communicated their intentions to leave the country. 

Celion said, " It's his right. We are doing this for the boy's sake." For "the boy's sake" Swedish social services ripped a happy, healthy and cherished child from the arms of loving parents. Why? To force him to sit daily in a building behind a desk in a Swedish school when just a few short months later he would have been doing the very same thing in Indian public schools, less the trauma caused by what has been almost an entire year separated from his parents.

Finally, on June 25th of 2009, as the Johanssons waited on an India bound jetliner readying for take off from Stockholm's international airport, uniformed and armed Swedish police, at the behest of Visby Social Services, swarmed the plane and removed Domenic from his parents’ custody. Social Services managed to rip this child from the arms of his loving family without a warrant and without reasonable cause to believe that he was being harmed. Their supposed crime? They chose to home school Domenic and to delay or decline certain immunizations. After the seizure of Domenic, Visby Social Services went on a fishing expedition and found that Domenic had two untreated cavities in his baby teeth and used those two cavities as reason enough to place the boy in the home of strangers where he has languished ever since.

Link Fixed

The Link to Yesterday's Story has been Fixed. 

The link taking you to the rest of the WND story that was posted tot eh blog yesterday has been fixed. Our apologies for any inconvenience. Go back here to read the beginning of the story and then to finish reading the story, the Read More link now works. A thank you to those who brought this problem to our attention!

WND: Judges blow off plea

Judges blow off separated family's plea

Christer and Domenic Johansson

Judges at the European Court of Human Rights for more than six months have ignored a separated Swedish family's plea for justice and reunification, and advocates for Christer and Annie Johansson say now it's time for the citizens of the world to demand action.

"It is quite concerning that this court has not responded to the pleadings filed – it has been rumored that there may be a court official who is...Read more: Judges blow off separated family's plea for justice

Christer Johansson's rights

Christer Johansson has less rights than thieves, rapists and murderers

Domenic and Dad, a close, loving relationship.

On Monday, November 22, 2010, a distraught Christer Johansson left a social services state supervised visit, taking his only child, Domenic, with him. Johansson did not have permission to take his son home, but did so in response to 18 months of pleas by Domenic to be allowed to go home to the family he loves and misses. After calling authorities on Wednesday, November 24th to turn himself in, Johansson now sits in a Visby, Sweden jail cell. All of the citizens of the Swedish island of Gotland have been breathing a sigh of relief ever since Johasson's incarceration. And rightly so! The lives of Gotland's citizens are much safer now that this loving, caring, gentle and sensitive father and husband is safely locked behind bars.  

Today, December 20, 2010, Christer Johansson was brought before a Swedish judge to face trial for his crimes against Sweden. While we do not yet know the outcome of this "trial" what we do know in leading up to today's legal circus is that Christer Johansson has less rights than Swedish thieves, rapists and murderers. 

Since November 24th, the behind-the-scenes legal battle has focused on securing the best possible defense for Johansson, who has requested representation by Trygve Emstedt, Gävle, a lawyer with 30 years experience specializing in human rights. Incorporated into Sweden's constitution in January 1995, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), under Article 6, guarantees every Swedish citizen the right to choose their own representative and the right to a fair trial as provided within the foundation of a legally secure process.

Father and son, a strong, loving bond.

In direct defiance of Swedish and European Union laws, Gotland City Courts have refused Johansson's guaranteed rights by rejecting his appeal for of a defense by Emstedt and has instead continues to maintain Shantu Brahmbhatt as his public defender.  Apparently, everyone in Sweden enjoys the guarantee of ECHR Article 6 except Christer Johansson. 

There two very good reasons why Johansson has rejected Brahmbhatt as his counsel. First, having only recently been accepted to the bar in June 2010, Brahmbhatt has only negligible and even questionable experience before the court. Naturally, Johnasson desires, and is guaranteed, to exercise his right to obtain the best defense available while he defends his right to liberty. 

Secondly, Johansson is only too aware of Brahmbhatt's inept legal counsel, for it is Brahmbhatt who was appointed by Gotland City Courts to defend Annie Johansson's rights as Domenic's mother. All who have been following the Johansson case since 2009 realize Brahmbhatt, as Annie Johansson's defender, has done little more than appear before Gotland's courts and has simply followed the edicts of Gotland Social Services. To date, Brahmabhatt has never forged an independent defense of Annie Johansson's rights, therefore it is not to be expected that she would forge an independent defense of Christer Johansson before the Gotland bench today. Earlier this year, Annie Johansson appealed to the courts to have Brahmabhatt removed as her public defender. Her appeal was met with a thumbing by the Swedish courts, as well.

In addition to fact that Article 6 of the ECHR, ratified in Sweden's constitution, guarantees Christer Johansson the choice of legal representation, the aforementioned reasons should have been enough for Gotland City Courts to grant Johansson new legal counsel. However, as we've witnessed since June 25, 2009, when armed police swarmed an India bound jet just before it taxied the runway at Sweden's Stockholm-Arlanda Airport removing then 7 year-old Domenic without a warrant and without ever charging Christer and Annie Johansson with a crime, Sweden's courts, especially those on Gotland Island, seem to operate under their own laws of justice, ignoring the rights of this family under Sweden's constitution and the ECHR.

Below is translated text from a story out of Sweden regarding Christer's trail today 


Dad on trial for kidnapping
I only wanted to see my son. That's how the man in his 40's explained it who was today on trial for illegally having abducted his son placed into foster care.


It was last November, when the man was meant to have had a supervised meeting with his son, that he pulled his son into his car and drove away. For a couple of days he kept his son with him before the police could arrest him.


Today the main proceedings took place at Gotland district court. The prosecution against the man was charged as kidnapping, or possibly illegal deprivation of liberty.


The man explained his actions with having to see his son, but he doesn't feel he's committed any crime.


The court considers it proven that he's committed the acts he's been indicted for, but before a sentence and sanction is delivered, he's to go through a major investigation by forensic psychiatry.


Hence the main proceedings won't end for another four weeks. Until then the man remains in jail.

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In another news account from Sweden, we've learned that Domenic gave a video testimony regarding the time he spent with his father and family after Christer took him home for a few days. According to the news account, Domenic told the court that when his father took him, he was scared at first but then he thought it was really great to be with his father and other relatives. He described his time away from state care as an adventure and had nothing negative to say about the experience.

This story can be found here:   
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=94&artikel=4250998

Guest Writer: Daragh McInerney

Be outraged

by Daragh McInerney, home educating parent, Spain.

Be outraged.

Do.

Feel angry.

If you don’t, something’s wrong.

Read about what has happened to Domenic. Put yourself in his shoes, those of his parents. Still feel nothing? Then I’m sorry, you’ve been too long in the system. Get out before you die from stupor.

Or maybe it’s just me. I home educate my children. I live in a foreign country. There are cases of persecution of parents by social services in Spain, too. Maybe someone might not like my accent, my hair, the clothes my children wear, the way they look, how well they read. It could happen to me, so it’s natural I empathize, right?

It could happen to you.

My children used to go to school. They weren’t happy, so we took them out. Everyone can have children. The same thing could happen to anyone, where you make a decision to do what is best for your children, what you think is the right thing to do, that you see in front of your eyes, that you’ve learned from nights being up with your child when your child is ill, being with them in moments of joy and sorrow, developing the strong, deep connection that is natural between parent and child.

Then imagine someone decides that they know better than you, that some soon-to-be-disproved theory on how many exams children should do per term or how important it is for children to learn to sit still for long periods of time should take precedence over what you think to be best. Imagine this person is backed by a whole system that would take your child from you, not allow you to comfort him, would imprison you if you wanted to spend more time with him.

There’s something rotten in the state of Sweden.

But it’s not only there, it’s around the corner, in your country, in mine, in the mind of someone who believes that the state should interfere in the lives of people who aren’t from the right background, the right class, the right country. When a happy child is taken from his parents ‘for his own good’, when a man is imprisoned for putting his child’s happiness above rule 502, and a woman is left without her husband or her son, something is rotten.

"If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next" 
                                                                      -Manic Street Preachers.

HSLDA Video

Homeschoolers are persecuted across the globe. Among others, this video includes the Johansson family.