The Canadian Press Legal experts across the country are closely watching a custody case involving two children seized by Manitoba social services over allegations their parents taught them to hate minorities.
Family and constitutional law professors say racist parents can’t lose custody of their children simply due to their beliefs.
But if those beliefs are so extreme they promote violence and hatred, the court can take the children away.
Manitoba Child and Family Services is seeking permanent custody of the girl and boy, who were removed from their Winnipeg home after the girl came to her elementary school with white supremacist symbols and slogans drawn on her skin.
Two social workers have testified the girl told them in separate interviews that her mother made the drawings. They also said the girl talked about being raised in a hate-filled home where violent racist videos were displayed, where the parents discussed killing minorities, and where drugs were used frequently.
The social workers also said the girl casually and frequently used racial epithets, and talked calmly about a method for killing black people.
The mother has denied being a neo-Nazi and has called herself simply a “proud Scottish chick.”
It’s believed to be the first child custody case in Canada involving white-supremacists beliefs.
Karen Busby, a constitutional law professor at the University of Manitoba, says the case was a hot topic among lawyers at a recent conference in Ottawa.
Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and child welfare laws protect the rights of parents to raise their children according to their religious beliefs, Busby says.
Parents can express their beliefs through their children. And many children wear religious symbols such as Christian crosses and Sikh daggers and turbans.
She says the Winnipeg case is not about persecuting neo-Nazis in the raising of their children. “Many neo-Nazis are raising children.”
Alarming evidence shows emotional harm is being done, says Busby. A social worker said the girl told her black people should be whipped with a ball and chain and killed.
The parents deny any wrongdoing and the mother says she doesn’t believe her daughter said those things, and if she did, social workers coerced her into saying them. Busby says the court will weigh the credibility of witnesses, but she believes the young girl.
“Her beliefs line up with what you might expect a white supremacist to say. It doesn’t seem like it would just be fantasy.”
Nicholas Bala, a family law professor at Queen’s University, says society has a broad range of acceptable political and religious beliefs.
But courts can intervene when the beliefs cause harm, he says. Jehovah’s Witnesses children have been apprehended because their parents refused to allow life-saving blood transfusions. Girls who face religious female genital mutilation have also been seized.
Other custody cases have also dealt with emotional harm, such as denigrating insults or neglect by parents, says Bala.
He says the Winnipeg case goes beyond what’s acceptable.
“Nazism is not just a political belief,” Bala says. “It’s not like the difference between Conservative and Liberal and Green Party or whatever. It is a set of views that did affect this child’s perception of the world and emotional well-being.”
He says the judge hearing the case also has important evidence to consider, such as alleged parental neglect, drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence in the home.
The judge may make a decision on those factors, Bala says.
But David Matas, a lawyer with B’nai Brith Canada, says the case has created so much controversy the issue needs to be addressed.
“I don’t see how the court can avoid it.”
He says it’s clear the neo-Nazi beliefs constitute emotional abuse, but that doesn’t mean the children need to be taken from their parents. He suggests a court order for supervision and counselling would benefit the family.
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So they compare racism to allowing your child to die for lack of blood, and cutting a little girls pussy off?
It’s clear if you don’t teach your kids to fuck niggers and allow themselves to be preyed upon, denigrated, hated, by fucked up minorities, then you are abusing them. HAHA
FUCKING SHITBAGS !!
How can the state justify taking the children of these parents yet allow other parents to brainwash children into equally destructive beliefs like Sikhism, Christianity and Islam? Religious indoctrination of children occurs all the time in this country. Children are taught to believe irrational and hatefilled dogmas before they are capable of deciding for themselves. This is the ultimate hypocrisy!