I found a considerable number of articles and some postings in debates about the Russian father with the three daughters who fled from Sweden. It is getting to be well-known in several countries, which is good. The case has among other things reached the conservative American newspaper Washington Times:

L. Todd Wood:
Swedish case shows how the West went off the rails
The Washington Times, 4 April 2019


Some more, of various quality, and some with comments going in all directions – it is nevertheless good that the case is getting to be well-known:

The Man:
Foster care and cultural compatibility
Political Hotwire, 11 April 2019

Man Flees Sweden For Poland With Daughters After Children Put In Muslim Foster Care
Blazing Cat Fur, no date

Chris Tomlinson:
Christian Dad Flees Sweden with Daughters Placed in Muslim Foster Care, Claims Asylum in Poland
Breitbart, 6 April 2019

Selwyn Duke:
Christian Father in Sweden Removed Daughters From Muslim Foster Home, Flees to Poland
The New American, 11 April 2019

Andry Kut:
Fleeing with children from Sweden, the Russians asked for asylum in Poland
Hand of Moscow, 4 April 2019


*

I posted a comment in the comments section of the 'Blazing Cat Fur' article:

"Marianne Haslev Skanland, Oslo • 2 days ago
Denis Lisov had a part time job. But the social services providing 'child protection' of course wanted to take the children, so instead of giving the father some assistance in the family's daily life, they claimed he 'couldn't look after them properly' and took them into care – forcibly, as they always do. They pay the fosterers incredible amounts, far more than it would cost to help the father, and fill their own jobs and those of their allied 'child professions' with this kind of tyranny.
Swedish 'child protection' is even worse than their Norwegian neighbours, but it is basically the same in the Western world: contempt and hatred for parents and for families' right to freedom and self-determination. All this 'foster care idyllisation' and all the professions profiting by it have to be got rid of."
  

  
Please explain, Tecshare, what you mean by "groups". I certainly know that the CPS (child protection services) in the USA are haywire, like the Western European ones, and have seen some small moves by some (Republican) politicians to investigate them. But perhaps you mean someone else – someone joining in to take advantage?

  
Oslo, Norway: 7 April 2019


Interesting to see this old thread put to use once again. It proves that the abuses carried out by Western child protection services have unfortunately not been accidental episodes.


Here is something more about the Swedish case from Ordo Iuris, Institute for Legal Culture, in Poland:

Walczą o ochronę międzynarodową w Polsce. W Szwecji ich dzieci oddano muzułmanom
https://ordoiuris.pl/rodzina-i-malzenstwo/walcza-o-ochrone-miedzynarodowa-w-polsce-w-szwecji-ich-dzieci-oddano


Did you see that the Norwegian mother Silje Garmo and her daughter have formally received asylum in Poland?
Asylum for Silje Garmo officially confirmed
http://en.ordoiuris.pl/family-and-marriage/asylum-silje-garmo-officially-confirmed

There are more families from Norway, too, who have fled to Poland. There are more interesting news also. Norwegian authorities are reacting by increasing the pressure, refusing to face facts and criticism, and doing silly things, like throwing out!! Polish diplomat consul Kowalski (who has done fine work here to help Polish families persecuted by the child protection 'service'.)

  

  

  
24 November 2016


The Norwegian child protection agency Barnevernet's use of duress and force against children

By Marianne Haslev Skånland


• • •
A slightly shorter version of this article in Norwegian has been published under the title Barnevernets bruk av tvang og makt mot barn.
The translation, including translation of quoted statements, is mine.
MH Skånland
• • •


(a)
In 1951, psychologist Mrs Gori Gunvald was employed at Bjerketun behandlingshjem og skole (Bjerketun treatment home and school), an institution for "unruly" young girls. She made strong objections against the abuse and neglect which the residents were exposed to. The girls could, for example, be punished for disobedience by having to stay in bed for a month. (The whole set-up was under the supervisory authority of the national director of health, Karl Evang. Everybody who has been confined to bed because of illness knows that the very fact of lying in bed, not being able to get up and take exercise, is detrimental to health.) Gulvald got the boot. However, she managed to mobilise the press and the case also drew attention in Stortinget (the Norwegian parliament). The institution had different answers when inconvenient questions were put to them: 1) The accusations were not true; 2) They were true, but the punishments were part of raising and teaching the girls; 3) The punishments were part of (psychiatric) treatment.


(b)
In 1996, two child protection workers at a private child protection institution in Vestfold county were convicted in the County Court for their methods of bringing up children (report on 11 April 1996 on the news of NRK, the national broadcasting company). The judgment especially emphasised their treatment of a 14-year-old boy, whom they had taken out in a copse without clothes, made to stand upright in a sleeping-bag for a long time, and forced to stand with his feet down in a puddle of icy water.

The two had to pay fines of NOK 5,000 (approx. US$600 - 900), but they were not deprived of their right to work in child protection, neither in the public nor in the private part of the system.


(c)
In 2001, some programs on TV2 showed children who against their will and against their strong protest were taken by physical force by Barnevernet with the help of the police (cf MH Skånland: En debatt om politi og presse som sporet av (A debate about police and press which derailed) 29 March 2002 / 22 October 2006). Mrs Karita Bekkemellem Orheim, the Minister for Child and Family Affairs of the Labour Government at that time, appeared on tv very shocked and angry, saying that no matter what, children in Norway were not to be treated like that.

One of the children was an 11-year-old boy, who strongly tried to resist being forced from his father's home in Norway to his mother in Denmark. He was brought to a psychiatric ward. The father was convicted of kidnapping and went to prison. But the boy came to his father for summer holidays the next year too, and now he had reached 12 years and had some legal rights, so this time the mother and the authorities had in the end to yield when he refused to be forced to go to Denmark once more. In 2006, his father instituted legal proceedings against the state and obtained satisfaction and a symbolic compensation for having been accused and sentenced. The son, now 16, gave evidence in court, confronting and blaming the public prosecutor very strongly for the way the prosecutor had conducted the case. In a news program on TV2 the son now asked what had happened to all the promises of the politicians "after the worst experiences of his life back in 2001". The Minister of Justice Knut Storberget (Labour Party) said in an interview: "I wish for a future in which we to a lesser degree make use of the police for that kind of assignments. I think it is natural for us to put some [proposals to Parliament], so that we tell the politicians, and the police too, by the way, how such difficult questions, among other things, are to be handled."


(d)
The fresh case about "The Glass Girl" is by now quite well known, through a series of articles in Stavanger Aftenblad (Saken Glassjenta is a thread of comments and links to articles in Norwegian).

"Ida", as she is called, has been repeatedly exposed to physical, brutal force, coercion, monitoring, restraint, and – in spite of originally having been persuaded to let herself be placed in Barnevernet voluntarily – has been brought back by force when she fled. All of it behaviour, by public employees, of a type and to a degree that would likely have interested an international torture commission with its eyes on ordinary prisons, if it had happened there. Ida has now been sentenced to imprisonment for crimes she has committed while in the institutions.

Everybody is "so upset", local and central authorities right up to Minister of Children and Equality Solveig Horne hold meetings and "confess" to "not having done enough" for The Glass Girl. Politicians and bureaucrats talk importantly about how "we must learn" from this case, it is presented as an exception due to lack of resources (but they have apparently paid out something in the neighbourghood of NOK 28,000 (≈US$ 3000) per day to keep her prisoner in institutions); the health authorities and the county governors are to intensify their supervision of institutions, in new ways, and the authorities want to make Barnevernet "even better" than today. Ida is apparently serving her prison sentence in some setting of "Forandringsfabrikken / Barneverns-proffene" (The change factory / The Barnevern professionals), a group of youths who, directed by the authorities, make propaganda for Barnevernet and for Barnevernet "leaning more". – The falsehood of all the propaganda ought to make all Norway take to its senses and blush. It stinks. It is certainly not a case of not having done enough, it is, on the contrary, one of having done far too much, all of it harmful.

*

No cases of these types between the dates mentioned above? Oh yes certainly, a steady stream rather, many of them easy to document quite openly. Allowed to take place not only under the social-state-idealists from the Labour Party and the Socialist Left Party, but also under the ministers Valgerd Svarstad Haugland and Laila Dåvøy, both of Kristelig Folkeparti (The Christian Democratic Party), which proclaims "the family" to be one of its very central concerns. What has been going on through the decades has been supported by all of them. Our politicians and bureaucrats have seen to it that there is a handy rule for themselves (possibly unlawful) saying that they "cannot go into individual cases". In this way they avoid responsibility and realism, and avoid keeping the individual cases in mind until the next time there is an "individual case". Just the way an article title in Stavanger Aftenblad hit the nail on the head. It can be paraphrased this way: It is not a failed case in the system. It is a system of betrayal.

How about pulling oneself together enough to face the totality? Our authorities permit themselves to act ignorant of history. This too they do repeatedly. They are "so shocked" at a few individual cases, but they babble on as before about "having to do more for the most vulnerable" and then the cases are hushed up. No admission or acknowledgement; eyes closely shut and sticking with one's buddies are tactics making sure of good protection for them. But here is a bit of reality which bears on exactly this matter:

Over the last 25-30 years, compensation schemes have been launched by the state, the municipalities and the counties, for people who have experienced neglect, force and abuse in Barnevernet's care. At first, compensation only covered care in children's homes / orphanages, and was limited to what had happened back in the 1950s and 1960s, at least 25 years before application for redress. At the same time, there was endless repetition of a refrain claiming that such things only happened long ago; now (in the 1990s) conditions were said to be altogether different. Then, new announcements kept coming, saying people could apply for compensation, they were broadened to include unwarranted treatment of children in foster homes, and the time limit has crept towards only about 10 years before the present. At the same time, nobody initiating a showdown about such abusive treatment, new cases of the same kind are created all the time, cases which will no doubt lead to compensation claims from the new generations in not too many years. The idea that Barnevernet is such a safe haven for children lives on. The naïve among us believe either that only in the olden days was Barnevernet bad, or that only the very last years are experiencing an unusual deviation from a system working well. In reality, Barnevernet's actions are about the same as before, they have just come to affect more children and families than before because of increased financing.

*

The Ministry of Children and Equality talks big practically every day, in the newspapers and in official statements, about child welfare and protecting children from abuse. They are active abroad, teaching their opposite numbers in other countries how to protect children from violence from their parents. Norway claims to be world leader in children's rights and scientific knowledge about children. (The Ministry's website, English version)

The present Minister Solveig Horne claims that the "investigation" of The Glass Girl case will change all of the Barnevern services. Really? – Why have no previous cases changed it?

Here, then, is a case only some days old: A 5-year-old boy was taken by the police and Barnevernet for questioning on Sunday 6 November of this year. Together with his family, he was kept waiting for two hours at the police station. Then he was questioned for an hour and a half, up to 11 pm, by two big and strong policemen he did not know. First, his grandmother was allowed to come with him when he was being questioned. Then the interrogators disliked a critical question from her and sent her out. Now afterwards, the boy is traumatised, according to the family and their lawyer, who was there. – Oh yes, everyone not blinded by all the official propaganda in favour of Barnevernet will quite likely understand that a boy 5 years old can be traumatised in the circumstances.
(5-åring skal ha blitt avhørt til klokka 23 (5-year-old apparently questioned until 11 pm),
nrk Oppland, 15 November 2016;
Avhørte femåring til klokka 23 (Questioned 5-year-old until 11 pm),
GD, 15 november 2016).

*

There is only one way to stop such brutality. It is to stop it. Stop. Cease. Not to carry it out. Stop those under one's management from carrying it out.

Not to cry crocodile tears. Not arrange meetings. Stop.


**
  

  

Positive development:
The European Court of Human Rights has woken up and seems about to give Norway's child protection system a proper scrutiny. Here is quite an informative article about it:

**************


25 October 2016


Resounding victory for the child protection demonstrators!
Demonstrators get outside help – and the child protection Minister becomes paralyzed!

By Olav Sylte, lawyer


• • •
Olav Sylte is a Norwegian lawyer who has represented the families in many child protection cases, and who is also active writing articles about such issues in e.g. periodicals, newspapers and on his website Rett og urett (Justice and injustice).
   The Norwegian original of this article, "Brakseier for 'barnevernsdemonstrantene'!", was published on October 19, 2016.
   This English version is published here with the author's kind consent.
• • •


They demonstrate in front of the Norwegian Parliament and are heatedly active on the internet, their common denominator being that they think the justice system is not working at all. At least not when it comes to Norwegian child protection (CPS) – Barnevernet. Now they may have found acceptance for being at least partially right.

Norway is in fact no longer considered to be typically best in class, at least not in an honest way, and this apparently also applies to child protection and the legal system.



The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)

The question I am raising here is not that of exploitation of natural resources, pollution or the use of dope in sports, but the basic issue of whether Barnevernet's intervention in families and homes has been "necessary" interference in these families in the human rights sense.

The alternative is that it may have been grave transgression of human rights.

Article 8-2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is the rule that states the requirement of "necessity", and this is what has been subject to debate lately.



The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)

My reason for taking this up now is that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has set in motion this year something resembring a unique, grand action against our child protection and justice system.

In a European context, it is rare that something like this happens. So it does not really surprise me that our Minister of Children and Equality had to give a rather sensational statement to the daily news on October 18.

The action started with the ECtHR admitting a Norwegian child protection case about forced adoption, to be considered under the possibility of violation of ECHR Article 8 last year. Human rights jurist Marius Reikerås was the one to submit the case and according to the media, he has had to move abroad as a result of his activity.

This case has probably, in conjunction with extensive demonstrations and criticism of the Norwegian child protection system over the past year, opened a fertile ground for other cases to get through the narrow needle's eye which the ECtHR usually keeps.

The action revolves around the investigation of, so far, 7 Norwegian cases, several of them about adoption, and the question of whether ECHR article 8, including the requirement of "necessity", has been violated.

( About the action: "Angriper barnevernet – Storoffensiv mot Norge: Menneskerettsdomstolen skal granske sju norske barnevernsaker" (Attacks Barnevernet – Grand offensive against Norway: The ECtHR is to investigate 7 Norwegian child protection cases) )

Even the fact that so many cases on the same issue have been admitted for proceedings, justifies the assertion that child welfare critics have already achieved a resounding win over Norwegian Barnevernet and the legal system that we have.



No self-criticism on the part of Barnevernet

Norwegian child protection gives the impression that the opposite has happened, and pretends that they do not even know of the ECtHR's recent activity.

To illustrate this, I can mention a case on adoption in which I represented the parents before a County Board a few days ago.

In this case the municipality's lawyer held that the human rights provision is not even applicable in matters of adoption, even though adoption is the most intrusive and serious intervention which the authorities can use against parents who do not agree to having their child adopted away.

The municipal lawyer claimed not to have heard anything about the ECtHR being involved in any proceedings regarding forced adoption, and had absolutely no knowledge of any activity of the ECtHR this year.

Certainly the central child protection authorities do not seem to have issued any instruction to curtail anything.



The Attorney General

Even the Attorney General, who has a habit of supporting the practice of the authorities, has recently stated that he is aware that the Norwegian child protection system may have got "out of control".

This was in the summer. Subsequently, two more Norwegian cases were admitted to the ECtHR for consideration in the Court (the number of cases thus being increased from 5 to now 7).

( His statement: "Det norske barnevernet under lupen" (Norwegian Barnevernet under close scrutiny) )



Paralyzed Minister

The headline in the newspaper Dagbladet said that the Minister of Children and Equality, too, does not rule out the possibility that Norwegian Barnevernet and the justice system may systematically have violated human rights, like the critics have over several years claimed they do. This at least is my interpretation, based on the newspaper report, of what the Minister said.

I hope somebody will as soon as possible explain to Minister Horne that she is in fact responsible and can issue instructions as she sees fit.

The responsible Minister is expected to immediately have her Ministry instruct all Barnevern offices in the country to change tack before it is too late.



The correction may come from outside

The assertion and the lack of information about the media image shown by the municipal lawyer I mentioned above, may serve as an illustration of the Norwegian child protection system and the zealous legal system that we have.

We have a system which does not dare to admit that it may have made terrible errors, in matters of basic human rights and dignity. That is actually what ECHR Article 8 really is about.

When even the Minister does not manage to take action before it is too late, but just concludes that something may be wrong, there is perhaps only one option left, and that is that the correction must come from outside.

I assume that if this is the case, what happens might be somehat more brutal. Only time will tell and the minister still has a few months to clean house.



Further limitation of the freedom of expression of the involved parties

I have written about this subject for many years. I have also been reported to the Bar Association's disciplinary unit for it. This is the side of Minister Horne which I have seen, besides the article in Dagbladet.

( More here: "Bufdir til klagesak mot advokat" (The directorate for child protection makes complaint against lawyer))

Furthermore, a year ago I wrote the following:
   If someone is to be criticized besides the psychologist in the current case, it is above all the Norwegian courts with the Supreme Court in the lead. This because the threshold for intervention in private homes may have been set too low in general, and probably all too often in violation of ECHR Article 8. I have yet to see someone criticize, with similar campaigns, the Norwegian courts for this.

 – I believe this claim is just as relevant today – but this is of scant help for those who have already lost their children. They can, however, expect to be invited by Horne to seminars, in the election campaign of the Progress Party which has started.


**


  

  


A very good, illustrative symposium recently in Vienna,
on the wayward Norwegian child protection system



Save The Children – Stop Violating Children's rights in Norway – Symposium LIVE
Save the Children, on youtube, 23 September 2016
(the symposium actually starts at around 35 minutes)

The organisers and hosts were Christian individuals of different denominations.
The speeches were in English, with interspersed German translation.


Some additional videos from the event,
the hosts welcoming the guests:

Symposium "Save the Children" - welcome to arriving guests
Save the Children, on youtube, 23 September 2016

How does it feel when your child is taken away?
Save the Children, on youtube, 23 September 2016

Marius Reikeras: "It is a war against human rights crimes!"
Save the Children, on youtube, 23 September 2016



Here in German, some days before the symposium. Very appopriately the
interviewed bishop says this is a problem in many countries:

Symposium "Save the Children"
Save the Children, on youtube, 14 September 2016

Weihbischof Scharl begrüßt das Symposium
(texted in English)
Save the Children, on youtube, 15 September 2016

  

  

  

A recent case of flight from Norway:

Dramatic Escape from Barnevernet!
Delight in Truth, 2 July 2016

"Barnevernet" is the Norwegian child protection agency.

There are 178 comments to this article at the moment. The couple with their twin daughters have fled to Poland and are reportedly applying for political asylum there. Let's hope they succeed and are let in peace, although chances are that Norway will do everything they possibly can to get hold of the children and prosecute the parents.

It by any chance Poland turns their application down, next stop ought to be the Czech Republic. There, the president will be on their side. He has previously stated officially that Barnevernet are acting like the Nazis. – Russia too might take them in, but would probably be a more difficult place for them to live.
  

  
The Romanian-Norwegian family Bodnariu have got their children back, at least:

Official statement:
Bodnariu case – Finally home, REUNITED!

  

  
Truly? He has not acknowledged his daughter and doesn't want to, but wants her to be sent to him?
Sounds like an ugly case.

  

  
If anybody can get anywhere, it must be Astakhov.

Would you enlighten us non-Russian-readers and tell us whether there is perhaps an American father, living in Illinois, in the picture?

Custody disputes between parents are hellishly difficult most of the time. It is much easier to see that a child is better off with parents, or at least one parent, or other biological family, than in the hands of a CPS authority. For one thing, the results of foster care, from every country where good studies have been made, are shown to be statistically so much worse than even growing up in difficult social and economic circumstances but in one's own biological family. Certainly there is individual variation, but the statistics, and therefore the prognosis for foster care, are glum.
  
  

If it had been a question of some idiots striking out a line of their own or simply messing up a few cases, the faults would have been corrected and restitution made to the affected families. Unfortunately it is not. It is a system fault and it's serious.

  

  
Yes indeed, Mike!


Here is a rouser for 16 April:

Appeal to Oslo, Stryn, Bergen and the Rest of Norway!
Delight in Truth, 13 March 2016


  

  
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg at long last seems to be getting tougher on the member states regarding CPS and forced adoption – the court may have become less trusting of the member states when the states explain away what they do to children and families?

Here is a Norwegian case of forced adoption which has now been accepted for trial by the ECtHR (hopefully, google translation will give some idea of the content, or else some capable Scandinavians can help with a proper translation?)

“Tvangsadopsjonen som kan endre norsk barnevern for alltid: – Barna mine spør om når de skal få treffe storebror. Det kan jeg ikke svare på”
Nå må Norge svare for seg i Den europeiske menneskerettighetsdomstolen.

(The forced adoption that can change Norwegian Barnevern (CPS) for ever: – My children ask when they can meet their big brother. I cannot answer them.
Now Norway has to answer to the European Court of Human Rights.)

Dagbladet, 12 March 2016
http://www.dagbladet.no/2016/03/12/nyheter/innenriks/barnevern/43463888/

The case can perhaps be found here as a pending case:
http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=home  

Let us just hope that the Norwegian state does not WIN in Strasbourg!

  
Lots of things going on. Most important: all the demonstrations and interest abroad, of which the Norwegian authorities understand precisely nothing. Whenever they are asked, they answer by "explaining" how the system works, in other words as if the ones who ask are law-students who want to be informed about the procedure.

It has not yet dawned on our authorities that the foreigners ask about the content of CPS decisions, not about their form - that the questions in reality ask: "How can Norway defend doing this to children and parents?"

Or perhaps the authorities understand, but since they have no proper reply, they talk like parrots. Again and again.

*

An interesting American website about both the Bodnariu case and other CPS cases and issues nowadays, is

Delight in Truth
http://delightintruth.com

The site has readers from actually every country on earth, it seems (cf the right-hand column), and I have out of interest made a little list of places in Norway which readers come from; the list runs to over 100 places now and there are still new arrivals.
  

Proua, you sound too good to be true! But I hope you are with us in that anything we do, is for free - there is nobody who can pay anybody for translations or other work.

First priority: Estonia and Estonians, of course!

I had not heard that there is to be a demonstration in Tallinn on the coming Saturday, so this information is extra welcome. Estonians do not have enough information about CPS in the Scandinavian countries and Finland, so certain it would be useful to translate and spread more information in Estonian. Also, Norway is active trying to spread their way of "protecting" children to Estonia too, and there is every reason to try and wake the Estonians up to what the result will be:

Norwegian child protection active as teachers in Estonia?

At the demonstration in Prague yesterday, the demonstrators marched to the establishment organising "Norwegian Grants" and called out: "Keep your money!", so many Czechs have understood something important.

Demonstration in Prague

*

If you are able to attend the Tallinn demo, I suggest:

1) You try to make a translation of Jan Simonsen's recent article:
Norwegian Embassy makes gross bluff about Norwegian child protection
into Estonian.

2) You put it out on the internet one or several places (I know Jan well, he is a Norwegian living part of the year in Prague) and I have his full permission to spread the article as well as possible and in as many languages as possible.)

3) You bring along to the demonstrations some print-outs of the article. Be sure to also pass out the link to it. Try to find the demonstration organisers and pass on a copy to them.

4) You could also bring along the same article in Russian version, for the Estonians who are not too young to have been taught Russian (also, I know there is a Russian population in Estonia.)
Jan Simonsen: Посольство Норвегии в Бухаресте - -

Many Russians, too, have been treated badly by Norwegian CPS, and they demonstrate. Unfortunately, the demos in Russia tend to be lead by a lady whose issue is first and foremost with the children's father, her ex-husband. She accuses the CPS of having taken his side unfairly. - It is usually impossible for outsiders to really know what is what in a conflict between parents. While the CPS are eager to sow conflict between parents and to capitalise on it, I think the thing we must do is to concentrate on stemming the tide of CPS treatment of children, not on solving disputes between parents. Plenty of Russians, too, understand this, and plenty of people elsewhere too try/want to direct CPS opposition towards the other parent. In my view that is a sometimes a hindrance to our work to spread factual information about CPS abuses.
  
5) Another thing which I need myself, in order to understand more fully what Estonians know and do not know, is to have a translation the other way: of an Estonian article into English or Scandinavian:
http://sirlejuures.blogspot.no/2015/06/uus-lastekaitseseadus-kas-lapsi.html

So it would very helpful if you were able to translate it. I know that it is critical of Western nations' CPS, but it is not enough for me to know just vaguely, I need a full translation.

You will see, both here on Bitcoin and on my own website that I have given a mail address, and you are of course welcome to use it if you want to communicate with me direct.

Let me just say as a conclusion that if you do not think this that I have suggested to be the most valuable thing you could do, then use your own judgment to see what you could best contribute. There are umpty articles, for instance, on the three pages of
http://forum.r-b-v.net/viewforum.php?f=56
and on my website
http://Http://www.mhskanland.net

that we would be very grateful to have translated into Estonian or Finnish or Russian!







  

  
There are some reports etc from demonstrations today. Click into the videos from Arad! They bring forth joyful tears, at least in me - I am quite emotional.


Reports and pictures from the demonstrations on 16 January 2016:


Vienna:    Lots of people in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Vienna, Austria
Video (English language)
Video (German language)


Arad:    Possibly over 1000 people, with a large brass band, on Piata Avram Iancu, Arad, Romania
Protest in Arad
Video: Miting la Arad pentru familia Bodnariu 1
Video: Miting la Arad pentru familia Bodnariu 2
Video: Miting la Arad pentru familia Bodnariu 3
Aradul, alături de familia Bodnariu
Arad Online, 16 January 2016
  
Suceava:    Possibly 1000 people demonstrating in Suceava, Romania
Video
UPDATE: Mitinguri de solidaritate cu familiile Bodnariu şi Nan
Romania Libera, 16 January 2016 (for both families Bodnariu and Nan)

  

  

You are very welcome in this thread, Proua! The persecuted families need all the help they can get, and publicity is very important, perhaps the most important of all now.

As regards translation, tell me: Are you Czech, since you link to that article from Prague Post? Which language would you be translating to?

The few of us who do fairly consistent work with the CPS problem, are up to our ears in work usually, so I don't know who could make special summaries. Could you have a look at my home page http://www.mhskanland.net and select articles I have written in English which you find useful? You will find my email address there. You are free to re-publish anything I have written. Similarly, there are articles on Forum RVB's English page: http://forum.r-b-v.net/viewforum.php?f=56 which might suit. You can ask me if you want to translate and publish articles which have been written by other people than me; I know several of the authors and can find out whether that is ok.

Regards,
Marianne

  

  

Demonstrations abroad against Norwegian child protection (CPS)  – Barnevernet


Planned demonstrations:

8  January      USA - Washington DC
8  January      Britain - London
8  January      Spain – Barcelona
8  January      Denmark – Copenhagen
8  January      Ireland – Dublin

9  January      Romania - Bucharest, Timisoara, Constanta, Cluj
9  January      Belgium - Brussels
9  January      Germany - Frankfurt
9  January      Canada - Ottawa
9  January      Italy – Rome, Torino
9  January      Netherlands – Hague

10 January     Spain - Madrid
16 January     The Czech Republic - Prague
16 January     Latvia – Riga
16 January     Russia – Moscow
16 January     Austria – Vienna
17 January     India - New Delhi, Kolkata
23 January     Slovakia - Bratislava
30 January     Poland - Warsaw

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Even if only some of these demonstrations take place, it should be considered very good. We must keep our eyes open and hope for reports, preferably in foreign media.

Here in Norway there was a demonstration in Oslo on Tuesday 5 January, with about 40-50 people (very good in this cold weather!).
Protest in Oslo

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5:50 p.m.

The national broadcasting nrk had a coverage in the radio program "Her og Nå" (Here and now) which runs between 5 and 6 pm. The part of the program dealing with Norwegian Barnevernet was about 9 minutes long. The first part spoke of the demonstrations and interviewed a CPS representative from Naustdal, the municipality where five children have been taken from the family Bodnariu (The five children of a Rumanian-Norwegian family taken by Barnevernet), the second part was an interview with the Norwegian ambassador in Lithuania, who told the listeners about the upset over Norwegian CPS in Lithuania for months.

The program stated that there have been invitations to demonstrations in 5 countries today, in London, Washington DC, Barcelona, Dublin og Copenhagen.
    The CPS say they do not believe the foreigners know how the Norwegian statute regulating child protection works, they will (again) send out information in English, and 'try to explain' the Norwegian system. The ambassador in Lithuania complains (again) that the foreigners do not want to listen to this "information". An embassy secretary in Washington thinks that incorrect information is circulating.
    The CPS locally in Naustdal have received heaps of postcards etc, and the administrative head of the municipal administration finds the situation so unpleasant that he will have the police monitor websites here in Norway which he thinks spread smear-campaigns on the edge of illegality.
 
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In connection with the demonstrations yesterday 8 January 2016:

The demonstrations have been a great success so far. The Facebook group gives the following numbers of supporters:

Washington:    700+ in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Washington DC, USA
Protest in Washington

London:    1200 in front of the Norwegian Embassy in London, England
Protest in London

Barcelona:    150+ in front of the Norwegian Consulate in Barcelona, Spain
Protest in Barcelona

Copenhagen:    30+ in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark
Protest in Copenhagen
Video

Dublin:    600 in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Dublin, Ireland
Protest in Dublin

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Here we have "a toddler" Cipri Tom who has placed an appeal on the facebook page of FrP (the Progress Party, which has the cabinet minister whose department is boss of the CPS!):
Please help STOP Bernevernet Norway kidnap children from their parents!
Fremskrittspartiet FrP, 8 January 2016

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Regjeringa følgjer demonstrasjonane tett (The government monitors the demonstrations closely)
Fleire demonstrasjonar er varsla i dag. Regjeringa har tett kontakt med rumenske myndigheiter i samband med dei store demonstrasjonane mot ei norsk barnevernssak.
(More demonstrations are scheduled for today. The government has close contact with Romanian authorities in connection with the large demonstrations against a Norwegian CPS case.)
nrk (the national broadcasting) in Sogn og Fjordane, 9 January 2016

"PROTEST I DUBLIN: Ifølgje arrangøren var kring 600 menneske samla utanfor den norske ambassaden i demonstrasjon mot barnevernet.
FOTO: STØTTEGRUPPA SI FACEBOOK-SIDE/DANIEL CATANA"
(PROTEST IN DUBLIN: According to the arranging committee, about 600 people gathered outside the Norwegian Embassy in demonstration against the CPS.
Photo: The facebook page of the committee supporting the family / Daniel Catana)

! !   Ah, indeed, photo taken from the support group – the national Norwegian broadcasting co has stopped using only state-subservient sources?

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Fleire hundre demonstrerte i Washington mot norsk barnevern (Several hundred demonstrated in Washington against Norwegian CPS)
Fleire hundre demonstrantar samla seg i dag ved den norske ambassaden i Washington som ein protest mot ei barnevernsak frå Sogn og Fjordane. Dei overleverte fleire tusen underskrifter til ambassaden.
(Several hundred demonstrators gathered today at the Norwegian Embassy in Washington as a protest against a child protection case from the county of Sogn og Fjordane. They delivered several thousand signatures of protest to the Embassy.)
nrk (the national broadcasting) in Sogn og Fjordane, 8 January 2016

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Reports and photos from the demonstrations on 9 January 2016:

The results are beginning to come in. Most numbers are by reports from the support group.

Timisoara, Romania:    1000 people  (place not given)
Protest in Timisoara
Video

Rome:    (Number of people not given) on Piazza Santa Prisca in Rome, Italy
Protest in Rome
Video

Bucharest, Romania:    2,500+ near the Norwegian Embassy in Bucharest, Romania
Protest in Bucharest
Video  (It is not entirely clear whether this video is from Bucharest or from Brussels.)
 
Constanta:    400 i Constanta, Romania
Protest in Constanta
 
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Massedemonstrasjoner mot norsk barnevern i 19 land (Mass demonstrations against Norwegian CPS in 19 countries)
Flere tusen mennesker demonstrerte mot norsk barnevern i Romania lørdag. Denne måneden holdes det nitten demonstrasjoner mot norske ambassader på tre kontinenter i forbindelse med en omstridt barnevernssak.
(Several thousand people demonstrated against Norwegian child protection in Romania on Saturday. This month there will be nineteen demonstrations against Norwegian embassies on three continents in connection with a controversial child protection case.)
VG, 9 January 2016

The article brings interview with ambassadors and authorities etc. Their attitude is all the time that what is missing is for the foreigners to "understand". When Norway informs them, other countries will understand, they believe. Their thoughts are free from any idea that Norway's child protection may in fact be doing something radically wrong – may really, in actual fact, be an abuser.

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Ottawa:    Several dozen in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Ottawa, Canada
Romanian-Canadians protest Norway's seizure of 5 children in dispute
Ottawa Citizen, 9 januar 2016

Brussels:    Almost 1000 in front of the Norwegian Embassy in Brussels, Belgium
Protest in Brussel
  
Torino:    400 på Piazza Vittorio i Torino, Italia
Protest in Torino

Hague:    100 people in front of the Norwegian Embassy in The Hague, The Netherlands
Protest in The Hague
  
Cluj:    500+ gathered in the centre of Cluj, Romania
Hundreds rally in several cities urging Norwegian authorities return Bodnariu children
Agerpres, Romanian National New Agency, 9 January 2016

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You could certainly say that, salinizm. They keep repeating endlessly how wonderful everything in our child protection system is, but will never discuss how individual, actual cases are carried out. Here is a new article which takes the Norwegian Embassy (= the Norwegian state) by the scruff of their neck: It has already been published by Prague Post, and has just now turned up on the internet in Romania in Rumanian translation.

If anyone would like to spread it further, the author Jan Simonsen would just be very pleased. It fits hand in glove with some demonstrations in a lot of countries against Norwegian child protection just now (I'll link to that below.)


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3 January 2016


Jan Simonsen:

Norwegian Embassy with gross bluff about Norwegian child protection (Barnevern)

The Norwegian Embassy in Bucharest has published a fairly long statement about the Norwegian Child Welfare Services (Barnevernet) on its webpage.

It's probably the same information other Norwegian embassies spread to various countries.

This statement is inaccurate and in part downright untrue. It is aimed at showing a rosy picture of a system which is felt by thousands of Norwegians as abusive and has triggered large demonstrations not only in Bucharest and other European capitals but in Norway too.

The Norwegian child welfare service – Children in cross-border situations

The Embassy writes:
"In 2014, approximately 53.000 children received measures from the child welfare service in Norway. More than eight out of ten of these cases were voluntarily assistive measures for children and families."

The number of children receiving assistance from the Child Welfare Services is of course completely irrelevant in relation to the problem: that many children in Norway are taken away from their parents. The statistics of The Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs show that 11,200 children and young individuals lived in Norwegian foster homes in 2014. In the course of the year 1,665 children were taken from their parents involuntarily. Every day around the year, then, 3 - 4 children are taken from their parents (Barn som får hjelp fra barnevernet).

The Embassy writes that an order for transfer of care is issued by a special Norwegian court or an ordinary court, "and only when the child is subject to serious neglect, maltreatment or abuse", and adds that "Placing a child outside the home without the parents’ consent is always a measure of last resort."

This is a serious allegation, indirectly implying grave accusations against the parents, who have scant possibilities of defending themselves. In a case against a Czech mother, her going to the media with her case was used against her in the appeal court.

The Embassy's claim that children are only taken from their parents when there is "serious neglect, maltreatment or abuse" is so far from the truth that it may be characterised as a serious lie.

Several hundred cases were examined by Dr. of science Åge Simonsen, whose conclusion was that few of the transfers of care were motivated in real care failure, rather they were done after a subjective assessment by a bureaucrat in the Child Welfare Services that the parents "lacked in ability to care". They were not evaluated as able enough to be parents.

This also actually agrees with the statistics of the Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs, statistics of the 20 most frequent reasons why the Child Welfare Services take action. At the top of the list we find "The parents lack in parenting abilities." In an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang, lawyer Thea Totland says that she has noted over the last few years increasingly many cases in which there is no question of evident care failure, "but that the ability to care is judged on the basis of opinion and on the basis of a number of demands which many are not able to fulfil" (my translation). Many Norwegian lawyers are in agreement with Totland's assessment.

What, then, are the demands posed by the Child Welfare Services as diagnostic for parents not having sufficient ability to raise their children?

Professor Marianne Skånland is probably the person in Norway who has for the longest period of years monitored our Child Welfare Services with critical eyes and has studied the field most thoroughly. In an article she lists arguments used by the child protection agencies in Norway and the other Nordic countries saddled with the same official system. From 69 examples I have selected five as representative:
(Hva skal til for at barnevernet skiller barn og foreldre? from An incomplete list of reasons given –)

1: The psychologist registered that the mother could not make an omelet to his satisfaction and she cuts the bread into too thick slices.

2: The child looks eagerly at strangers around it and smiles at them. This means that it is not attached to its mother.

3: The baby turns its face the wrong way when its father washes it.

4: The mother wants to let the children's grandmother bring them to and from physiotherapy and other medical treatment which they need, instead of taking them herself. In this the mother puts her own interests before the children's.

5: When visiting the children the grandmother wanted to embrace them. The CPS had to stop that, since it can create an unwanted attachment.


The Embassy writes that "Parents are entitled to a due process, including a lawyer paid for by the government, the right to be heard and the right to appeal the decision".

On paper that is correct. But the judicial process is illusory. Case law shows that it never succeeds. Norwegian lawyers confirm that this is so. While the cases run in the courts, the children are in the hands of foster parents, and the Child Welfare Services therefore advance as an argument against the biological parents that the children have adapted to their new "parents" and that it would be traumatic for them to be torn away from their new environment. This argument is maintained even more strongly with time and is approved by the courts.

In sum, it must be said that in most cases the Child Welfare Services take children from their parents on the basis of a subjective judgment of "lack of ability to care", with very flimsy arguments. The attitude right from the start is that the major responsibility for our children is the prerogative of the state, not of the parents. Parents and children are daily subject to these abusive actions from the Child Welfare Services. They affect both Norwegian parents and foreign parents in Norway. Even the children of asylum seekers, children who have been confiscated by the Norwegian Child Welfare Services, are kept on permanently with Norwegian foster parents, whereas their parents are expelled from Norway.

In the wake of the Child Welfare Services we have seen human catastrophes, destroyed families, and in some cases parents who have taken their own lives or have ended up as drug abusers in their desperation over having lost that which is most precious to them. A report from the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research shows that foster children in Norway take their lives eight times as frequently as other children do (pp 12-13 of the report).

This is the truth of the Norwegian Child Welfare Services which the Norwegian Embassy in Bucharest has not wanted to inform the Romanian public about.

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Hadn't the family better bring the other two children to Russia, instantly, at all cost? After all, standard procedure of child protection systems in the Nordic countries is to consider it self-evident that if one child is punished, then the parents are sure to be monsters and to punish the other children too, so the authorities confiscate the other children also. "Just to be on the safe side" they are kept in foster homes until they are adults.

I know that Finland is pretty bad. The big problem in finding concrete information regularly is Finnish language. It belongs to a totally different language family from the Indo-European languages, so articles in Finnish are not accessible to nonFinnish speakers. The advantage here is that it concerns Russia, so that Nemo has been able to find info.

It comes in good time too: a demonstration in Moscow is planned for the 16th January. This is to be directed specifically against Norway (good) but it may hopefully draw attention to the child protection of other Western countries also (good). I'll be posting about the ongoing demos presently.