European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg: Orthodox Jewish Movement Fanatical, Dangerous and Radical

VosIzNeias (What's News)   January 13, 2009

The Voice of the Orthodox Jewish Community


Lausanne, Switzerland - The justices of the European Court of Human Rights believes that the Orthodox Jewish movements citing Chabad organization is "fanatical, dangerous and radical", Arutz-7 reports.

The circumstances under which the European Court of Human Rights justices expressed their opinion of Orthodox Jews involved a question of a Chabad family of extradition where a mother who had kidnapped her child from Israel was appealing his extradition to Israel. The four-year old child's father had become a Chabad chassid, and the mother claimed that contact with the father would endanger the child.

Isabel Neulinger had hidden her child in the trunk of the car when she crossed Israel's border by car to Taba in Egypt 3 years ago. She took a flight in Egypt to Europe to distant her child from her former husband.


Israeli courts ruled that she Mrs. Neulinger had kidnapped the child and even issued an arrest order against her for the kidnapping.

After Israel demanded the extradition of the child, the mother appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to retain her child in Switzerland, claiming that Chabad was a dangerous and fanatic ultra-Orthodox movement, and if her son returns to Israel, his life will be in danger.

Mrs. Neulinger was citing which, for example, women must cover their hair and boys should be sent as early as three years in religious schools called "Heder".

She also claimed that the Swiss authorities violated her family rights according to Clause 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Since over two years had passed since the kidnapping, the child would suffer trauma if he would be returned to his country of origin.

The mother's claims were bolstered by a Swiss psychologist who wrote a professional opinion that the child's emotional and physical well-being would be endangered by contact with the father.

After over a year of deliberations, the European justices ruled 4 to 3 to return the child to Israel. Although the majority of the justices agreed that Chabad is a dangerous, fanatical movement, the majority claimed that Israeli authorities would protect the child from harm.

Austrian justice Elisabeth Steiner, who wrote the minority opinion, snobbishly stated, "How can we as judges permit a child to be sent away from Europe to countries who do not share our European values?"

Russian justice Antoly Kovler, also in the minority, said that the father had not proved that he lacked the means to visit his son in Switzerland, and it is anyway sufficient to keep in contact through email and the Internet. Luxembourg justice Shpielman claimed that as long as the mother has physical rights, even if both shared custody over the child, the mother had the right to decide where she wanted to live and the Hague Convention against kidnapping children did not apply.

Agreeing that Chabad was a dangerous group, the justices from Greece, Cyprus, Norway and Switzerland said that Ms. Neulinger's lawsuit was justified. Nevertheless, since the mother had lived 6 years in Israel, they assumed she would be able to deal with life in Israel in the future. They furthermore claimed that the state would protect her from the designs of the fanatical father, so her right to a normal family life would not be compromised.

The father's case was represented by Atty. Moshe Zingel, who traveled many times to Strasbourg despite taking the case pro bono. "About the father's right for 'normal family life' with his kidnapped child for the past three years, they had nothing to say," Zingel said. He added that part of the reason why the child was such a long time in Europe was because the court case had dragged on for a year and 3 months.


This article was found at:

http://www.vosizneias.com/25641/2009/01/13/lausanne-switzerland-european-court-of-human-rights-in-strasbourg-orthodox-jewish-movement-fanatical-dangerous-and-radical/