Persecution: Overt and Covert

Overt actions and covert actions are terms well known to military officers. When an attack helicopter fires a Hellfire missile through your front window, the action was overt. If I chose to sneak around your home and spread poison on your front lawn or tell all of your neighbors that you are cruel to animals then that would be construed as a covert action. One of the actions was obvious and the other less so, but both cause damage.

The Iranian administration and mullahs are into overt actions. Recently, five Christians were arrested last year and will reportedly begin their trial within the week.  Lengthy prison sentences for the group would be the likely outcome of the trial. (here) And what is their crime? They were charged with “disturbing public order, evangelizing, threatening national security, and engaging in Internet activity that threatens the government. In short, they were having Christian church services in their houses.
  

Now let’s discuss a covert action.  A German couple brought their three kids to the United States in 2007. While in Germany the couple had taken their children out of the pubic schools and decided to home school them because they felt the educational systems in Germany were detrimental to their Christian values. After coming to the US, the couple sought, and was granted, political asylum in the United States by an immigration judge.  Read the article here. 

The Board of Immigration Appeals overturned that ruling. The couple, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, appealed the Board’s decision to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The most disturbing point in this story is that the United States Justice Department has filed a brief to the court on behalf of the action of the Appeals Board. In part, the brief states that the German law “promotes tolerance and pluralism” and “did not disproportionately burden any one particular religious minority.”

In essence, what our Justice Department has said is that home schooling, which is quite widespread in this area, is a choice and that the government has the right to curtail that home schooling at the government's discretion. The Romeikes face sanctions in Germany that include fines, jail sentences, and the removal of custody of their children. If the Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the Board’s ruling, this piece of governmental oversight of our religious liberty and parenting becomes a piece of the precedent for future cases. Pretty covert, huh?