3.01.2010

Teen Convert Needs Legal Protection (Not Prosecution) Toward Family Restoration

March 2, 2010 will find Rifqa Bary in court yet again, with a review of her status in foster care. Generally, family courts review the status of the parents’ progress toward reunification of the family, not the inverse, as is happening in Franklin County, Ohio. Children are placed in foster care for protection from their parents. Here, however, the child continues to be prosecuted, and generally by the attorneys for her parents.

Parents are endowed with the fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children until they have been found to be unfit to do so. When parents threaten to take the life of their child, such threats are usally taken very seriously by child protective services.

17 year old Rifqa fled her home when her father threatened her conversion from Islam to Christianity as apostacy deserving of death. She fled her home, sought assistance from the law in two states, and has been prosecuted for running away. Her parents have not been charged, nor subject to a child abuse investigation. They have not been ordered to seek counseling, or any other assistance in this serious domestic threat of violence. Their daughter, however, is now in Ohio foster care, receiving counseling and under severe restrictions, while attorneys prosecute a friend who helped her flee when threatened. Here’s a sample of an update from Pamela Geller at the American Thinker:<
“Law enforcement, in a perverse twist of reality, continues persecuting the Christians in Ohio who helped a teenage apostate escape the death threat (in line with sharia law) made by her family. They are investigating any "criminal wrongdoing with anyone involved in getting her from one location to another." How many other runaway cases are pursued in this way? How many other teenage girls in America have this attention paid to them by law enforcement? How many teenage girls who sell their bodies for sex and drugs for an adult pimp are pursued this way? And their pimps?

Back on January 19, Rifqa Bary was tricked into pleading guilty to the charge of being "unruly" in exchange for a dependency deal that the Bary parents and Omar Tarazi, their attorney chosen by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), later reneged on. And now we understand why Tarazi demanded a guilty plea from Rifqa in exchange for this meaningless deal. The Franklin County, Ohio, prosecutor, under pressure from Tarazi, is seeking to indict Brian Williams on two charges: contributing to the "unruliness" of a minor and "interference with custody," which carries a sentence of six months to a year. What kind of nation, what kind of society are we living in, when someone who helps a girl whose life is in danger is prosecuted for it?

Read the entire article here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/prosecuted_for_saving_a_girls.html.

Geller’s points ought to be well-taken, and taken seriously. Proceeding in the Bary case in such reverse fashion of what generally occurs in a family court, and what is needed and required for the best interests of a child is chilling, at best. Proceeding in this fashion does not protect parents’ rights generally either. Most disturbing, it does not foster any sort of reunification or possiblity of any restoration for the Bary family, or safety for Rifqa.

4 comments:

  1. I am astonished to see the twisted path that this case has taken. What do parents who prosecute their runaway daughter really want? Most parents who have a runaway child go look for her or report it to the police. If they can’t find her, they wait and hope that she returns home. They don’t take her to court.

    Additionally, if the goal of the court is to protect children and foster familial stability, they are going about it all wrong. Why are they requiring Rifqa to go through all the counseling and investigations, while her parents sit back and demand custody of their daughter. If Rifqa fears for her life, where’s the investigation on the parents? There needs to be a thorough investigation of both parties if a child’s safety is at risk. But as of now, it all seems to be one-sided by labeling her as “unruly” and placing major restrictions on her. Who or what is the court really protecting?

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  2. "Who or what is the court really protecting?"

    Answer: Islam

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  3. Surprising posts for a "legal" blog. Heather should be aware that the Bary family did do the normal things that she mentioned. They had to file charges so that court in Florida would cede jurisdiction. The plan agreed to apparently includes counseling (individually) for both Rifqa and parents--with the first task before them being to arrive at a plan for conditions under which she may contact the family who hid her from authorities in Florida.

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  4. Geller is a irresponsible pseudo "journalist". The fact that you quote her calls into question your credibility as a legal scholar if that is what you are aiming for. Like Judge Scalia quoting Micheal Savage. Make your case, but do not quote a source that lacks academic credibility. She is a bomb thrower and commonly makes unfounded statements without citing authority or sources.

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