8 October 2011
Your Excellency Ms. Nicola Clase
I am writing to you as the UK representative of the Swedish government and nation to protest in THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS your government’s actions towards the Johansen family.
The reasons given for the abduction and enforced imprisonment of a young child from an aeroplane concern matters for which no criminal case can exist. For a while they homeschooled that child, not an offence under Swedish law. Not only did the family ask for permission to homeschool, they received that permission from the relevant authorities. They also exercised their legal right to opt out of some vaccination programs for their child. For these terrible ‘crimes’ they were subject to the shameful abduction by state officials of their son from the plane they were about to take as they emigrated to India, where they planned to place their son in a school. They had told a judge that, and it was accepted by him. Suddenly, they had their child snatched off the plane – for doing what the law and the courts had said they could do.
There are a number of disturbing parallels between the way the state of Sweden has behaved and the typical behaviour of oppressive dictatorships and police state theocracies, and that bring great shame on the nation of Sweden. A number of these behaviours can be high-lighted by comparing this case with a contemporary case in Iran, the death sentence against a Christian pastor for ‘Christian activities and apostasy’.
Let me outline the parallels.
Firstly, both cases started in 2009 where both victims were attacked by state forces for exercising basic human rights, in Iran freedom of religion, in Sweden the right to homeschool and raise children as they see fit and emigrate to another country.
Secondly, in both cases there have been clear violations of law and due process. In Sweden, the child was kidnapped because his parents had done things which they had clearly been authorised by the state (and law) to do and had been given permission to do by a court. To want to home-school a child for the period leading up to emigration to another democratic country where they intended to place the child in a school is in no way a crime, nor should it be. In Iran, having been told he would not be executed if he was deemed never to have been a Muslim, the pastor was told he would be executed, even though it was found he was never a Muslim. In both cases, the state said one thing and did another. What kind of state gives legal permission for something that it then criminalizes the same people for doing? A barbaric and lawless state. In this case, Sweden is precisely such a state.
Thirdly, in both Iran and Sweden, the state interfered in the right of the victims for unimpeded legal representation of their choosing. In Iran the state charged the legal counsel with serious criminal activity. In Sweden the social services who perpetrated the kidnap rushed to get the legal system to deny the family the expert legal counsel they had chosen and to instead inflict on them counsel chosen by the same state that had so abused their rights. Shamefully the courts agreed. This rush to deny the victims specialist legal counsel quite frankly smacks of Swedish social services having something deeply shameful to hide, which indeed they do.
On another note, when the father, driven to desperation, took his son home, it turns out that, in addition to the emotional child abuse the Swedish state had inflicted, they had also LIED to the child about their parents, telling him that his parents no longer wanted him. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS AND DESPICABLE BEHAVIOUR AGAINST A DEFENCELESS AND VULNERABLE CHILD – OUT AND OUT CHILD ABUSE. In addition, the Swedish state has employed the tactics of Soviet Russia in getting a state psychologist to declare the father mentally ill, although psychologists independent of this apparently nascent Gestapo state have found him quite mentally well. In this case the psychologist used the nebulous diagnosis ‘narcissistic tendencies’ which quite frankly can be manipulated to cover or insinuate anything, and has the vagueness that social services seem to love to use to justify themselves when they have no solid reasons for their actions.
Fourthly, in both Iran and Sweden recently, once international media picked up the story, officials both tried to fob matters off by claiming the cases were about something different. In Iran they suddenly started saying that the apostasy charges were all a Western plot to discredit Iran and that the pastor was really guilty of ‘serious crimes against security’. And in Sweden, the head of the regional social services involved claims that the case wasn’t really about homeschooling, but something else. But he couldn’t say what allegedly ‘because of secrecy’. It STINKS of cover-up of abuse.
You may think this is all unfair, that Sweden is not in the same league as Iran. Maybe so, but the parallels are disturbing, and in this matter Sweden is disturbingly close. If this TRAVESTY of abuse continues, Sweden will find its name even more dragged through the mud than it already is. I ask you to convey to the government of Sweden my deepest concern over this affair.
For Sweden to clear its name, there needs to be a thorough airing of the goings on in this case. Firstly, ALL evidence pertaining to the decisions made should be brought out into the open, otherwise the stench of cover-up will continue. If, as seems increasingly likely, the Social services have launched this brutal assault on this innocent family because they did not like the family’s worldview, then swift action must be taken against those responsible. They will have abused their position to enact a STATE SPONSORED CHILD KIDNAP AND CHILD ABUSE and a SYSTEMATIC SUPPRESSION OF THE HUMAN AND LEGAL RIGHTS OF AN ENTIRELY INNOCENT FAMILY.
I repeat, if Sweden does not end this perverse travesty of justice, it will be descending ever more into the realm of a Gestapo state, liberal by name, but not by nature.
Yours sincerely
Nathanael Lewis
[Ed. One correction needs to be added here. The state psychiatrists also found no cause to give Domenic's father a negative diagnosis. After he had taken his son to visit with his grandparents, we was subjected to an extensive psychological evaluation that totally absolved him of any mental illness or abnormal behaviour]
