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In
memory of Margit Eliasson
Margit, a friend and former board member of the NCHR
Margit Eliasson
delivering a speech at the NCHR/NKMR:s symposium in Göteborg on June 12, 1998
Dear Margit, it is
always so difficult to say goodbye to a good and faithful friend and companion
in the struggle for Family rights in the Nordic countries. Margit, spokesperson
for The Grandmother's Rebellion (Mormorsupproret) and board member of NCHR, and I, president of
the NCHR, have fought side by side for children and their parents and
relatives, human rights: their right to respect for their private and family
life. The right to respect for everyone's private and family life is a right
guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European
Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child.
Margit was a member of the steering committee of the NCHR for only one year.
She resigned because she had had her first heart attack. Margit became a board
member of the NCHR after she stayed her duties as spokesperson for The
Grandmother's Rebellion, which she led with great success for at least ten
years. It was Margit and her Grandmother's Rebellion which in 1997 gave
Sweden's children the right - a right which has always been natural for
children of all other countries in the world - to live with their grandparents
and other relatives if they should lose their parents.
Margit was one of the speakers at NCHR's first symposium in Gothenburg in June
1998. On behalf of the Board and members of NCHR I wish extend a big THANK YOU
to you Margit for your invaluable work for Sweden's unfortunate children, those
who are removed unnecessarily from the care of their parents by the social
services and placed in foster homes among often unsuitable people, although
they have grandparents and other relatives who are willing and able to take
care of them.
Dear Margit, I already miss your pleasant voice when you would call and say,
'Hey Ruby, it is Margit". That was the signal that there was something
interesting to follow. You used to call and tell about interesting cases of
unnecessary taking of children into public care and about maternal and paternal
grandparents and other relatives' struggle against unnecessary government
intervention in the lives of their children, grandchildren or relatives. You
used to call and tell about interesting newspaper articles that I was able to
link to the NCHR's website. If the articles were not on the Internet you gave
me the names and phone numbers so that I could contact them to obtain their
permission to publish their articles directly on the NCHR's website.
You have been silenced as a friend, companion in the struggle for a common goal
and source of information, Margit, but you have not disappeared out into thin
air. You have left clear traces in Sweden's recent history through your
voluntary commitment as a spokesperson for The Grandmother's Rebellion and as a
board member of the NCHR.
Once again, I want to say a big THANK YOU to you Margit for your friendship and
for your invaluable work for Sweden's unfortunate children.
I thank you Margit that I have had the privilege of having got to know you, to
meet your husband, Lennart, your daughter, Carina and your grandson, Dennis.
Your friend,
Ruby
Ruby Harrold-Claesson,
Lawyer
President of the NCHR/NKMR
April 15, 2007
Till Minne av
Margit Eliasson
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In Memory of Astrid Lindgren
In Memory of Astrid Lindgren - the number one opponent of the social welfare officer "Prusseluskan" and the number one champion for girl's and children's rights - who was forced to leave her native country, Sweden, when she was young and vulnerable and expecting an "illegitimate" child,
and to Eva Andén, Sweden's first female lawyer, who helped Astrid Lindgren and other young women to find a safe place for themselves and their children
The same hunt is still going on! (see e g the article Angels of Antichrist)
Peter Klevius (the illegitimate child of a hunted mother) for NCHR
The Nordic Committee for Human Rights
NCHR
For the protection of Family Rights in the Nordic countries
A tribute to Pamela Gaston
On behalf of the Board and members of the NCHR, I would like to express our deepest sympathy to Will Gaston and family for the untimely loss of your beloved wife and mother, Pamela Gaston.
These condolences on the loss of Pamela Gaston are equally addressed to the people of Oregon. You have lost an activist who was a staunch believer in the American Constitution, the Rule of Law and the protection of the basic Human Rights of children and their families. Her experiences in her family's struggle to rescue their daughter, Melissa, from the state agencies, and her involvement in other state care cases, made her aware of the corruption in the legal profession and the court system. She thereafter educated families to act "sui juris" when appearing before the courts.
Pamela Gaston's death is not only a great loss for her family, her loved ones, the State of Oregon and the United States, but also for us here in the Nordic countries, where children and their families are suffering under the tyrannical rulings of the social services and the administrative court systems.
Pamela Gaston gathered information about the children, their parents and families who are being traumatized and destroyed and she published and shared the information. During the years Pamela Gaston has sent innumerable articles and other information to the NCHR about the US state agencies forcibly removing children from their parents' loving care and placing them in often unsuitable foster homes among total strangers, who take the children for money.
The NCHR recognizes these problems because the situation is the same for thousands of children and families here in the Nordic countries.
Pamela, your voice for children is now silent but your example of standing up for the protection of children's basic Human Rights to their parents and families and freedom from confiscation by state agencies will remain in our memory.
Sadly missed
April 8, 2005
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
Attorney-at-law
President of the NCHR
STOP STATE
SEIZURE OF NEWBORNS - PRESERVE HUMAN
FAMILY BODY RIGHTS
By Pamela Gaston
The Christine Case
Collection of articles from Associated Press and Fight CPS and Win
Treårsminnet av Donia Hassans död
Idag, den 28 april 2015 markerar treårsdagen sedan tvångsomhändertagna Donia Hassan, 15 år, vanvårdades till döds i fosterhemmet i Simrishamn, där socialarbetarna i Simrishamns kommun hade placerat henne genom vårdföretaget Attendo - långt från hennes nära och kära. Den 28 april 2015 var slutet för Donia Hassans lidande, men tre år har nu förflutit sedan hennes mor, Annina Karlsson, påbörjade sin kamp för att utkräva ansvar för sin dotters död.
Read more: Treårsminnet av Donia Hassans död
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By Anu Suomela
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Anu Suomela is the president of PESUE - the Association for Family Rights in Finland. She was the legal representative for R in the case of R. v. Finland and also for Katrin and Timo (K & T) in their case K. & T. v. Finland in the European Court of Human Rights.
The following is Anu Suomela's tribute to her good friend and supporter in Human Rights, Finnish lawyer T., who perished in the Tsunami on December 26, 2004.
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T's family tragedy
T. travelled for her long wanted holidays to Chao Laki with her husband and three children (13, 19 and 22 years old) on 17.12.2004, and informed me by letter to come home on 27.1.2005. She worked as a public legal aid council. Together we had been fighters for human rights in Finland for over 10 years.
But the tsunami came on 26.12.2004. The wave threw K. the oldest daughter (22 years) to the top of a palm tree. She hung there for six hours badly wounded, but survived and was brought home. We had a memorial service on 26.3.2005, but at that time only the father was found. In May I heard that also T. and the other daughter were found. I thought they had been buried in silence. The son was found only in November and brought home.
T. lived in Pohjanmaa, Lappajärvi and I've visited her several times. We celebrated my victory in the case of K & T there in summer 2000, and I have the ten red dried roses from her on my bookshelf.
Anyhow. Her loss was a total chock for me, and there has not since been a day I wouldn't have thought her, and in legal cases asked in my mind
'What do you say T.?'.
The funeral
A good friend of mine had in spring invited us to Pohjanmaa to hear a famous opera on 18.6.2005. My husband and I drove there and stayed over night. On Sunday I wanted to drive to Lappajärvi to leave flowers on T's grave. We arrived there at 2 pm. At the same time the church bells started to ring and the church doors opened. T. and the other daughter were being brought out to their grave.
I stood there stricken by a thunder light. How come I am here now at the exact hour, though I had no knowledge of the funeral? (I do not believe in mysticism explanations, this was just a coincidence, but the situation was so striking to me). Later I heard the whole story from T's and my common friend P.
On November 2004 T. and P. had had a long conversation about friendship. P. had introduced T. the idea of each of us having six friends 'to carry your coffin'. Who would they be for T.? She had named me for the first, P. for the second and one of her sisters for the third. She had said that she has to think over the remaining three.
After coming home from Chao Laki, the daughter K. had told P., that the day before the tsunami, she had been bathing on the beach with her mother. The mother had then told to K. the idea of six friends for carrying your coffin. K. had now asked P. whether T. had named any for herself, as she had not told this to K.
P. had revealed that I was the first, the second was P. and the third was the sister. K. had then wanted to follow her mother’s wish, but the family objected to inviting me at all, as I have such a bad reputation at Pohjanmaa. I have a reputation on resisting the authority and 'good order' and defending paedophiles. It is true that I've been several times as an expert witness in sexual abuse accusations, but never defended paedophilia.
K. was too weak and tired to resist and did not even know what was so bad in my person. It had been a fight even to allow P. to be one of the carriers. It was a question of the family's honour and good name. I heard that it had been all wrong to invite me even to the memorial service in March.
P. told me that when she knew all this and coming out of the church saw me standing there and waiting, she almost collapsed. She knew that I could not have known of the funeral, and yet there I was, the first carrier as T. had wished for. All this information was for me so astonishing, I did not know what hatred I had caused inside the family by defending people accused of sexual abuse. T. newer thought that way, as she was an analytical lawyer and her principal was to find out the material, historical truth of the case.
And now T. gets her post Hume winning at the ECHR. She was a fire hearted, fearless fighter for Human Rights. When I was sometimes tired and depressed in the case of K & T, as the Government did everything possible to smear and discredit me T. stated: 'Now you do not care what Piia-Liisa Heiliö (the ministry of social and welfare) writes and does to put you down. You do not give up now! Lets weep and heal the wounds when this battle is over'. And so we did.
In this case of R. T. did all she could, but the more she tried the worse her client's situation got, as the social workers felt themselves threatened.
What is so disgusting in the Government's explanation to the Court, is that the violation of the of access rights was well taken care on the national level. The truth is that after fighting for three years to get an appeal able decision T. contacted her friend Anneli Jäätteenmäki who then acted as the minister of justice.
Anneli had contacted the Parliamentary Ombudsman whose office then had contacted the local social workers. Only after this procedure the client got an appeal able decision, but even then the social workers took their revenge and lessened the contact with the father and son to half. And the Government praises itself of how splendidly the system works on the national level correcting the faults of social workers.
After this long lasting alienation and manipulation, the boy did not want to meet his parents anymore. The substitute parents had told him that if he wanted to live with his father he would end up living in the children's home, which he hated.
If you read the judgment you find at the last paragraph that the father refused to take any compensation from the Government for his sufferings, as it only would have reminded him of the wrongs he had suffered of.
T. told me that the father said, that his whole life has been destroyed. He has been accused of the most disgusting criminal acts against his little boy whom he dearly loved and tried to protect. He was a religious man and lost his faith in God too, and thereafter the society where his friends were. He has not answered to my letters though I was the first he contacted in 1993 to get help.
In honour of T.
When this judgement of R. was declared on Tuesday 30.05.2006, I sent it to Jussi Kortteinen with whom I've twice been in Strasbourg in oral hearings. He well knows the history of T. He had just on Monday started a seminar on administrative legislation at the University of Helsinki. He immediately emailed me back that he will start his lecture with this case to honour T's work, and it will remain as a judgement for her honour in the history of ECHR.
It will. And I'm so humble and thankful to people fighting for Human Rights with me and us all. I want to leave a better world for my seven grand children to live in. There are so many dangers against democracy and Human Rights. Democracy is a one millimetre thin layer in human history,
started actively only after the Second World War by Declarations of Human Rights, when we saw what totalitarian ideas made people to do destroying millions of lives.
The war and destruction goes on around the world as democracy has not been adopted, and has been abandoned in US politics. We cannot give up.
As frustrating as these situations often are, we sometimes win and thereby help to guarantee our fellow men better Human Rights. Often we loose and therefore we have to go on and never give up.