Twelve Tribes Germany update 19 / 2014 October 9
The original post written by Jennifer Stahl can be found here: Yeshua Hineni Twelve tribes part 19
To view previous posts on this site click on the links: 18, 17, 16 ,15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (First post right after the raid that took place in Bavaria in September 2013 where 41 children were taken from their homes and put into state custody).
The 12 Tribes began a PR campaign in June to help sway public opinion in their favor. Some of this has included inviting people to community meetings and discussing their faith and parenting methods. You can find some snippets about that from Augsburg TV, here.
|
|
|
A Year after the Police Raid, the Twelve Tribes go on the offensive. |
I’ve been busy trying to catch some of the more recent news that was airing on television that I missed the following story from August 4th. RTL’s program “Undercover Deutschland” covered the Twelve Tribes again, which was discussed on MyHeimat.de
There was a press conference on the first of August in Klosterzimmern held by the members of the Twelve Tribes community and their lawyer. They have begun proceedings against RTL reporter Wolfram Kuhnigk again. They are alleging that the secret camera recordings that have since been published by Herr Kuhnigk on RTL were recorded much earlier than declared and have been heavily edited…
Die Gemeinschaft ’12 Stämme’ zeigt den Enthüllungs-Reporter an
The Donauwörther lawyer, Michael Langhans, has issued a dispute over the veracity of the claims RTL reporter Wolfram Kuhnigk has made. He criticized a decision of the District Court in relation to the ublication of the documents [made available by RTL and Wolfram Kuhnigk]… At the end of the press release, Langhans announced that out of respect for the court, he would not independently publish the documents in question, but he believes he has the rights to do so..
Zwölf Stämme: Rechtsanwalt kritisiert das Amtsgericht
There was a press release made by the Twelve Tribes Lawyer Michael Langhans which can be found here.
The members of the Twelve Tribes do not give up easily. They announced a press conference to try and make a complaint against the reporter. However, this has not been well received…
… Many are asking, “How do parents who spank their children in the name of faith tick…?”
„Zwölf Stämme“ Die Babyschläger-Sekte!
The courts let it slip that the cost of housing the children has become quite high and they’re scrambling to figure out where the funds will come from.
Depending on the type of housing, the age of the children, and additional services needed (such as therapy); the bill for the Jugendamt has risen on average to 130€ per child, per day and also include around 1,000€ for each foster family per month. Since the placement of the children into care in September 2013, the costs required by the children by end of June 2014 are around 473,798.91€ …
Kinder der Zwölf Stämme kosten Landkreis eine halbe Million Euro and Eine halbe Million: Warum die Zwölf Stämme so hohe Kosten verursachen
On September the 4th, The Twelve Tribes announced protests on the following dates and times; Friday the 5th of September at 10am to 8pm, on Saturday the 6th of September at the same time frame and would be holding them at the Königsplatz in Augsburg. These were relatively quite affairs, though some of the individuals here in Germany working against the group did manage to show up at these protests and at the town hall meetings they held in Gasthaus Krone in Öttingen, of which, they invited the whole community to.
On September 5th, the anniversary date of the raid, Bayrisches Rundfunk published a chronology of the escalation against the sect. BR also released a 24 second video reminding people it has been one year since the raid on the 12 Tribes, and some images from the demonstration. Groups working against the Twelve Tribes also began sharing information from Sekten Info NRW. A new Facebook page was also formed, sharing information in English and German about last year’s raid. This page has also been visited by some supporters of the Twelve Tribes, arguing that no abuse has taken place and that beating your children is absolutely commanded by Scripture and must be obeyed, despite the protest of the page owners.
In the same week, several articles were released on Deutsche Welle discussing UNICEF’s “Hidden in Plain Sight” paper about child abuse:
In its “Hidden in Plain Sight” report, UNICEF reveals the extent to which children the world over are suffering at the hands of adults. Often their own parents.
The most common form of abuse is violent discipline, with six out of ten children aged between two and 14 (almost a billion) regularly falling victim to physical punishment, the report said.
Under the terms of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which 194 countries are party, every minor is guaranteed a life free of all forms of violence. Except they are not.
Global child abuse shapes the violence of tomorrow
…”Too many victims, perpetrators and bystanders see it as normal, and when violence goes unnoticed and unreported we fuel the belief among children that it is normal.”..
…”Violence against children, direct or indirect, can cause trauma, low self-esteem, bad health and poor school performance, and in some cases, it can lead to depression, alcohol and drug abuse, self-harm and even suicide,” Gupta said…
UNICEF report finds ‘staggering’ levels of violence against children
…Between 2000 and 2010, around 8.6 percent of German children and young people were living in poverty. In 2012, child care services took in more than 40,000 children because their parents were overwhelmed. “If a country strengthens the rights of the child, it strengthens its future,” said Jürgen Heraeus, Chairman of UNICEF Germany. There’s a need for better functioning help networks, he added….
UNICEF: Governments must do more to protect the rights of children
On September 20th, the Fränkische Landeszeitung and the Süddeutsches Zeitung posted stories about the Twelve Tribes in the paper. I was unable to get a copy due to a situation with our car breaking down, but someone was kind enough to scan in the newspaper articles and send it to me. If you cannot read German, don’t worry too much, most of what is covered in these articles are also covered in snippets of news stories below it. I have posted these in the original size so that they are legible for our German-language readers.
Radio 8 and RT1 also had some news articles on their site, but those have somehow gone missing since. Thankfully, I had done a screen capture.