League for the Renaissance of Moral Standing
Registered letter with return receipt
Mr. President of the district council Sibiu
Martin Bottesch
Str.G-ral Magheru 14
550185 Sibiu
Commission of child protection Sibiu 42/05.02.2008
Complaint
Dear Mr. President,
in the name and on behalf of the ?Fundatia Sf. Don Bosco?, Cincu, we herewith file a complaint against the secretary of the district council Sibiu and the president of the commission of child protection.
Aside from the fact that he did not even bother to introduce himself or the committee by name, we repudiate offending and humiliating treatment. During many years we were used to be treated correctly and objectively by the former president, Mr. Polefka. We had a productive cooperation, not a single misunderstanding.
Reasons:
The secretary of the district council (name unknown as mentioned) claimed several times that the commission wanted the best for the children, but we obviously not. Face to face to a priest he thereby referred to the authority of God, in order to lecture him. Has he studied theology? He quoted our alleged defaults, but especially failed concerning the treatment of the child, whose case was the objection of the hearing. The child (victim of an incest) has been sufficiently stigmatized, but there she was made look like a fool in a way I have never seen before and thus additionally stigmatized. After the meeting the undersigned needed two hours in order to mentally re-stabilize the child.
The commission obviously believed that the child should be shut up in a home for disabled. Whereupon I represented to them that the child has been fully integrated and socialized in our house for 6 years, that at great cost we bring the child to a special school in Fagaras every day and that the Western European education long ago has come to realize that even disabled children, if possible, shall grow up among ?normal? children. In this school the child attends logopedics classes and has made progress during the recent two years. If, of course, she is confronted with a whole committee, the members of which are unknown to her and who do not have a single friendly word for her, then it was bound to happen that the child slumps down, ducks her head and is no more able to communicate at all. It is newly stigmatized.
The child concerned is hardly able to hear or speak. The last time it was at an aural specialist?s was in 2006 (certificate of our family physician Dr. Roman). Our doctor about the results up to day. Furthermore the child has been presented to the neurologic psychiatry in Sibiu, we have not been informed about the results this time either. After all, these examinations were executed twice in the district of Brasov and Sibiu due to reasons of competence conflicts. This fact, too, is to the disadvantage of the children. The registered office of our foundation is Sibiu. Cincu is a branch in the district of Brasov.
As you know the registered office of the foundation was transferred to Sibiu due to the mediation of the former German consul general Breth, because in Brasov we had been harrassed and libelled in a way that our work became impossible. The former president of the commission, Mariana Tiharau, who is president still today and has caused much sorrow for the children in the district, called the undersigned ?perverted?, because already then he opened the home (1991) along the lines of a sound family education, meaning to accommodate boys and girls together in one house ? contrary to the communist ideology. Tiharau wanted to liquidate the foundation then. She even had the undersigned take away his passport and arrest due to false accusation (suspicion of having killed a child). The passport was reclaimed from the prefect by the consul general Breth. In Buzau we won the process. Obviously our fault was that we never had made this lady a present.
It is the old ideology of communism, provided with new labels, which makes the people here live still ducked and in fear. As we from the West have another structure, express ourselves, we are suspect, we have to be persecuted and harrassed. But Romania does not have the right to do that anymore. Romania is integrated into Europe and has signed to conform to the European rules. The named president Tiharau has already changed her party for the fourth time, just in order to being able to remain in her office. She is hate-filled against the German priest Demidoff, because he boldly tells her the truth to her face, exposes her communist ideology and fights for the rights of the children of the Casa Don Bosco against her in court. It is an open secret that this functionary is a member of the Securitate.
We repudiate the accusation that we do not do everything in order to help the children. We have been serving the abandoned children for 17 years in Romania and have the ill children verifiably examined by specialists in the whole country and abroad. We have never got a single Lei of support for this work, not even a word of thanks. On the contrary:
Suspicions, libels, intrigues, harrassments and obstructions, when children were to be transferred abroad in order to there help them more qualifiedly.
The inacceptable behavior of the president of the commission yesterday of course relates to the week-long, endless investigations against us. What had happened?
In connection with the practices of the named ?lady? we asked the president
district council, Cancescu, to review the institution responsible for child protection, which is subjected to him. We did not get answer, but instead a letter from Mrs. Tiharau, stating that she is competent. Is that still the way of doing something in Romania? A comparison: you apply to the police in order to report a thief.
Page 3 LIGA to President Bottesch
The police, however, in this example refers the victim back to the thief adding the comment that the thief is ?competent?. I have described these pratices already in 2005 in my book ?The priest of thorns?.
Well, the president of the district council persisently refused an answer. Thus we applied to the responsible court in Brasov, which right from the beginning showed by its performance that it would hardly have the courage nor the will to sentence the president of a district. And they gave us the advice to content ourselves with that. We then applied in Bucharest for the relocation (stramutare) to an independent court and now have started proceedings against Mr. Cancescu in Buzau.
What happened then is a prime example for the former communist nomenclature, who cover up for each other still today and answer ?attacks? and criticism with counter attacks. We had to experience this very often during the recent 17 years. Recently the LIGA was a victim of these practices on the occasion of the disclosure of the practices of torture in the Romanian prisons. Because we informed the European Parliament, a charge was brought against us on the basis that we had ?instigated a revolt? of the prisoners. This communism, which only seems to have broken down in Eastern Europe, is horrible and primitive. Thus the ?National organization of child protection? in Bucharest, who appeared without notice, was instructed to conduct ?investigations? in the private house of the undersigned. At the house of the children concerned they had only a glance without investigation, in order to then construct a false and unbelievably lying ordered report (i. e. by Tiharau). Then investigations by the ministry of employment and social affairs followed as well as by the organizations of child protection in Sibiu and Brasov. There is nothing to be hidden by us and we are not afraid of a civilized inspection. Nevertheless we are not subjects, who have to be terrorized. The weeks of this many inspections were terror. The behavior of most of the inspectors unbearable. But worse is the time, we have lost due to such unqualified inspections and during which we are not able to spend it on the children any more.
Now the inspections have been finished and we will again hand over the falsified reports against us to the responsible courts, inform you about the results and without distinction of persons take legal action accordingly.
The social assistant of the organization of child protection in Sibiu ?rendered herself conspicuous?,
Maria Ignat,
whom we ban from the house due to fomentation against the direction of the home. You do not need much imagination in order to guess what kind of atmosphere she had created against us within half an hour, before we were called in. The undersigned therefore of course accused her of her communist ideology and her absolutely illegal methods of investigation during the yesterday?s committee meeting. Towards the committee she defended herself with the comment that she had the right ?to confidentially talk to the individual children?. She may, even if this seems strange to us democrats, have the right (excluding exceptional cases), and principally we do not mind individual interviews. But we disapprove, and we will take legal action against that (abuse of office), her fomenting the children behind the back of the priest, insinuating them and incriminating the staff and him. Not least due to the mentioned inspections it is illegal to prompt four children (infants, one 6 years old, one disabled as mentioned) to leave the foundation and to change to another home in Sibiu. Generally the children feel well here and are not able to understand such an intrigue, and even less, why they should declare that they ?do not feel well here?. In this context also see our article in
SibiuStandard of March 9, 2007
Holy arrogance: The ideology of communism has a good grip on the post communists.
The children Alexandra (13, disabled), Elena (6 years), Vasilica (14 years) and Alin (15 years), all from the district of Sibiu, have been prompted several times to declare that they want to leave the home. The children refused, Vasilica however has become inapproachable for us since then and insists on leaving. We do not know, what else Ignat has suggested to her. The question of our housemaster, what she does not like, she answered ?she did not like anything at all anymore?. Until the day of the interview with the assistant there had been not a bit of sadness in this child. She had been well integrated and enjoyed taking part in all collective actions.
According to the new laws we are now also obliged to employ ?qualified? housemasters. Aside from the fact that in the last 10 years we have not found any or they did not want to come to the countryside, the foundation wants to do without such ?trained? personnel under all circumstances. In this case we prefer our own housemasters who have been in our service for 10 years and who have adapted our educational methods after a fashion. Even only recently we have seen so-called qualified housemasters who stood in the corner with arms crossed and kept watch of the children like guards. We cannot help drawing a comparison to prison staff. Housemasters have to be real educators, motivate and stimulate the children. Another example for alleged qualification we experienced with the psychologist of the commission. The child Alin, 15, had to take tests and among others was judged to be depressive. As the child has been entrusted to our care since his 6th month of life and we therefore know him like our own child, we had him examined by another psychologist in Brasov once again. The result was diametrically opposed to that of the psychologist in Sibiu.
Why do they not see to qualification at the special authorities and why do they not take a clean sweep in the state homes first, why do they want to liquidate us? Due to the fact that we give the example how to make it better? Also a consequence of the decadent ideology.
After the permanent growing of bureaucratism for many years at the child protection and after the more and more becoming obvious reactivation of the old misanthropic ideology with new labels, we have reduced the number of accomodated children from once 130 to now only 10 (absolut emergency and socially problematical cases), and it is inexplicable for us, why we shall have to engage 10 youth work professionals for 10 children. For that the district may please place the money for these salaries to our disposal, we possibly would arrange for such a bloated machinery, although according to the number of children this would even be an afterwit. There was much more to be said about this misanthropic ideology. The undersigned will continue to draw attention to this invalid system in his Friday?s column of the newspaper ?SibiuStandard?. Of course it is not a coincidence that Demidoff receives threats from certain circles every Friday respectively Saturday and that the newspaper is permanently demanded to sack this Demidoff. And obviously it is not a coincidence that Demidoff had been shadowed and provoked by ?9? ( n i n e ) Securitate members on the occasion of the visit of the German president in Sibiu. Did they mean to have to prevent the president of the LIGA from just addressing the president of the Federal Republic of Germany in the street?
The state makes great demands on a private foundation, but does not contribute to that itself, but ? as described ? harrasses and libels. Of course for communism a private initiative is ?damnable?. Especially if the label of ?family education? is a farce and the old ideology of the damnable collectivism calls the tune. We will not educate our children collectivistly, but support individuality and personal abilities.
The inspectors of the ministry of employment and social affairs pursued the same method of incitement of the children against the priest. Questions asked behind our backs:
Why don?t you have a single room?
Do you get meat every day?
You are 17, why don?t you have a girl-friend?
Why don?t you go to the discotheque?
Why do you have to pray three times a day?
Why does Don Demidoff claims to be a ?priest??
Why are you forced to adopt the Catholic ?religion??
etc., etc.
In our ?objection letter? to the ministry of employment and social affairs we have explained how wrong and Page 5 LIGA to President Bottesch flimsy such influences are. Aside from the fact that our houses belong to the few in Romania, which are permanently open (by the way for visitors as well), indeed from the beginning, we state that the public homes are closed, the children are captives and that they need a ?permit?, when they want to leave the house. We know the kind of provision in the other homes and regret the conditions under which their children have to grow up. We are well informed about everything else as well.
Now we are even obliged to record with which children of the village our children are in contact and which children visit them. Not only the children themselves deny this, but we to the highest degree as well. Shall we also keep a communist list shortly, about when and how often the children frequent the bathroom.
Do you not know the reality in the villages and towns anymore? In Iacobeni and not only here, often 12 persons dwell in one barack and permanently come here in order to beg, they get meat once a year at most, but indeed have the freedom to beget children at the age of 14, whom the state finances with 3 million Leis per child for three years. Is that the reason, why also in the public homes children are begotten by children now? Is that a new version of Ceausescu?s policy, ?the state needs children!?
The undersigned is a full member and ?incarnated? in the American ?Independent Catholic Church? and member of the ICCC (International Council of Community Churches USA) ? documents are sent willingly. We have not only informed our church about these defamations, but also the embassy of the United States in Bucharest and the German consulate general. Where is the declared freedom of religion?
Not a single child has been motivated to enter our church during the past 17 years. On the contrary: we had asked the former abbot of Sambata, Irineus Duvlea (today bishop in the U.S.) to baptize children of orthodox families in our chapel in Cincu,
what he did. For that we have to bear defamations as well. (again see my book ?The Priest of Thorns?). Aside from the stultification of the people here Catholizism was one religion, orthodoxy another one. Therewith they deliberately take the people for fools. For it is only one religion: Christianity. The different churches are different confessions, no more no less. International ecumenical assemblies take place in Sibiu. What does it mean, when at the same time they fight and libel our ecumenical church in Iacobeni???
They also explained the children and reported ?upwards? (Bucharest) that we were a sect. When a counter inspection came, they stated that this was a ridiculous claim and also that the rooms of the children are furnished quite ?normally? (without any sect propaganda or advertising influence). But even i f we were a sect, is there not religious freedom in Romania in 2008? The question is disgusting in spite of the allegedly disappeared ideology, ?why the children had to pray three times a day?. This is an old Catholic custom in our house, to pray the ?Angelus? (The angel of the Lord brings Maria the glad tidings?) in the morning, at noon and in the evening, which each takes about 5 minutes in the chapel of the children. Why do the neo-communist of today mind the children to remember the presence of God three times a day and to use the opportunity to thank the creator? Nobody did read our house rules, nobody did want to read them. They are 10 concise points ? if these were followed by the public homes and put into practice, we could do a big step forward in Romania.
During the recent 17 years our foundation has made many efforts to show cooperation and to assist in constructing new programs. We have not been appointed to a single committee, not even invited to give a subject-specific presentation for the responsibles. We even were not worth an answer.
In the interest of the still oppressed people, especially the children, the LIGA will not stop to draw attention to the grievances and to encourage the people to no longer accept injustice.
The LIGA trusts in a growing independent justice in Romania. And the flipside of the reactions of the still ruling nomenclature are the reactions of the poor, the simple people, who do not have a spokesman in Romania. They thank us for the open language of the articles in the newspapers, they thank for the ?courage, they thank for the truth?.
Finally we would like to take up the wrong policy of the so-called ?re-integration? of the children from the homes. We in the LIGA have gathered the cases of the children, who ?come hell or high water? are re-integrated. The children end up at relatives up to the fourth degree, who are royally paid for that, but do not spend the money for the living and education of the children. The children were sent for begging again or ? although still of school age ? forced to earn money as shepherds. One cannot help but suspect that in Romania the children are re-integrated on the street, in order to whitewash the statistics and to lead the European Commission to believe that the problems of the abandoned childrens are ?solved?.
Dear Mr. President Bottesch, we expect a decidedly answer to our complaints from you. Of course you may, as practiced in Brasov, set an army of authorities on us, of which are not afraid anymore after the recent incidents, for we are in practice now. We wish that you understand our concern and do not consider us to be troublemakers.
We do not work against the state, but for the people of this country, where we have been living for 17 years as well, have not run away like many others, who have been ?decorated? even for that. We have promised the children, who have remained in the foundation and who have grown up to young people now, that we will stick by them even against ever so many harassments or attacks of the authorities. For this is a value of our Western, Christian moral as well: loyalty. A term totally missing in the communist ideology.
You become responsible, forever, for what you have made familiar with yourself.? Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
With the expression of my esteem
Yours,
Father Don Demidoff ICCC
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