Noted Belgian Blogger Interrogated by Police for...Home Schooling His Children!

Paul Belian, "distinguished editor of the free market blog The Brussels Journal, journalist, author, holder of a PhD, fluent in three languages was "summoned for interrogation" again. This time he was not tagged for disseminating divergent ideas but for....homes-schooling his children!

Belian's wife, Professor Alexandra Colen, "holds an MA in Linguistics (University of Reading, UK) and a doctorate in Germanic Philology (University of Ghent, Flanders, has lectured at the universities of Antwerp and Ghent and is the author of A Syntactic and Semantic Study of English Predictive Nominals and co-author of Vale Dale Groot Woordenboek Engles Nederlands (Van Dale Comprehensive English to Dutch Dictionary) and other linguistic books," is also not considered qualified to teach her own children.

Why? According to this report: they refuse to sign an oath..."respecting the respect (sic) for the fundamental human rights and cultural values of the child itself and of others": they defy multiculturalism and political correctness. (Convention on the Rights of the Child)

"But this is not just a matter of berserker Eurobureaucrats. Belian and Colen are publicly critical of the New European State. The Brussels Journal blieves in liberty and free markets. Such ideas cannot be allowed to flourish in Europe."

Could it happen here. This blog previously posted information about the threat directed at home-schooling by international law. (More information is made available at the Home-schoolers Legal Defense Association site.)

Last month Michael Farris, the chairman of the American Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), warned that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child could make homeschooling illegal in the U.S., even though the US Senate has never ratified this Convention.

According to some activist judges the UN Convention is “customary international law. [...] The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence.”

Under the Convention severe limitations are placed on parents’ right to direct and train their children. Under Article 13 parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable. Under Article 14 children are guaranteed “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” – in other words, children have a legal right to object to all religious training. And under Article 15 the child has a right to “freedom of association.”

Michael Farris pointed out that in 1995 “the United Kingdom was deemed out of compliance” with the Convention “because it allowed parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes without consulting the child.” The HSLDA chairman said that, “by the same reasoning, parents would be denied the ability to homeschool their children unless the government first talked with their children and the government decided what was best. Moreover, parents would no longer have the right to bring up their children according to their own philosophical or religious beliefs, as the government, following the guidelines of a UN “committee of experts” would determine what religious teaching, if any, served the child’s best interest.”

[...]

Under the Convention severe limitations are placed on parents’ right to direct and train their children. Under Article 13 parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deem unacceptable. Under Article 14 children are guaranteed “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” – in other words, children have a legal right to object to all religious training. And under Article 15 the child has a right to “freedom of association.”

Whoa, Nellie! This means that parents have say in what their children learn or in with whom they associate. Parents can't guide their children's thoughts, according to moral principles, or prevent them from exposure to materials they feel are inappropriate.

I wonder how many parents will sit still once they learn of these regulations. My guess is that the UN regulations will be eased into the generation of children now in school that are being trained to work for the good of the group. After all, isn't that what school work is for? Improving the school and the school system, creating happy and compliant citizens?

American judges are choosing for American parents on the basis of international law:

"Thus the ultimate judge of the child's rights is the United Nations...And some activist US judges are happy to consider the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 'accepted foreign law,' on part with the US Constitution. Even though the UN Convention was never ratified by the US Senate. They just make it up as they go along."

It appears that many laws and policies are made up as they go along and once on the books and followed without protest or being checked for validity, become common law and assailable.

"Sadly, the United States has plenty of aspiring PC Commisars, ready to destroy home schooling, free blogs, and above all, free thought...If you let them."

I also sadly agree. The story of Paul and Alexander will become commonplace...if we let them.