An eyewitness tells us in a comment that some of the people at Lev Tahor have fled.
I live less than a kilometre from this group’s houses (I can see them from my backyard across the cornfield) and in the country news travels fast… My neighbour called this afternoon to say that seven cop cars were blocking the entrance to the housing units.
It seems these persecuted families are on the move again…. The Chatham Daily News is now reporting that the 13 children who were due to be taken into protective care today and their parents have now fled to the Caribbean to frustrate justice AGAIN.
Before I saw that comment I saw an email from a reader with a link to the CBC reporting the same thing, along with the news that it looks as if the attempt to frustrate justice will fail. It looks as if they will be sent back to Toronto.
Some members of Lev Tahor, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect from Quebec that fled to a town near Windsor, Ont., last November, have apparently flown the coop again, this time to Trinidad and Tobago, where their journey has been halted.
Immigration authorities said the sect members were in transit to Guatemala, but officials in Trinidad and Tobago have prevented the members from flying to Central America after the authorities allegedly found some inconsistencies in their responses.
Well done, officials in Trinidad and Tobago.
Members of Lev Tahor arrived at Piarco International Airport Monday and have refused to leave, an immigration officer at the airport told CBC News.
The members are not being detained as fugitives.
A spokeswoman with Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of National Security said the group was offered hotel accommodations, but the sect members refused.
She said sect spokesman Avraham Dinkel has continued to negotiate with local authorities to travel on to Guatemala and not return to Canada.
A statement released Wednesday by Trinidad’s Ministry of National Security said, “the Immigration Services have been advised to pursue the decision of having the group return to their port of origin,” which is Toronto.
Very good.
The flight south comes as two families were scheduled to appear in a Chatham-Kent, Ont., court today to learn the result of their appeal of an earlier court judgment that demanded the children be returned to Quebec and placed in foster care.
Stephen Doig of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services said his agency has alerted sister agencies with offices along the Canada-U.S. border after the families in southern Ontario could not be found at their homes.
So that will be the seven cop cars our commenter’s neighbor saw.
Last month, an Ontario judge upheld a Quebec ruling ordering 13 children in the Lev Tahor sect to be surrendered to child welfare authorities. After being denied an appeal by a Quebec court, the group issued a request for appeal to an Ontario court.
This came after the Quebec and Ontario provincial police forces raided the Lev Tahor homes in Chatham.
Quebec’s Youth Protection Services alleged in court that children living in the sect were medicated with melatonin to control their behaviour, couldn’t do basic math and were married off as young as 14.
Protect those youths.
I’m wondering if this story is going to end up with some sort of ghastly hybrid of Jonestown and Masada. All the more reason to get the children out of there as far as I’m concerned.
Really. Or, that plus arrest the “rabbi” as Warren Jeffs was arrested. Jeffs still controls his slaves from prison, tragically, but it’s a start.
The real horrifying issue with this CULT is, the welfare of the young innocent children at the dangerous Lev Tahor cult. It baffles me how members of the Lev Tahor cult can claim religious persecution and anti-Semitism when they have fled twice to escape a judge’s ruling, making a huge Chilul Hashem, all over the world.
If it was you and you felt that an injustice has been committed, would you not appear at the hearing in order to plea your case? this cult leaders son Nachman Helbranz has been sent by his father Erez Shlomo Helbranz all over the world to fight on behalf of the cult in many courts, he has traveled as far as Middle East to fight in court, and when he saw that he was loosing he fled back home immediately.
This “wild west” kind of behavior, would indicate that they are truly guilty of wrongdoing to their children, they abused by them, in many ways including sexual. An innocent person stands up and fights for their rights, they do not flee with their tail between their legs. The main concern is, the welfare of the young children, whose parents have indoctrinated them into this horrible cruel cult led my some cold-blooded monsters and gangsters the “Hell-Brans”.
If the allegations of poor physical health, lack of education and subjection to corporal punishment etc. are found to be true, then the children should be placed into foster care immediately, regardless of the cult leaders beliefs, the leaders have been known to be vicious mind controlling people, who force them to obey their orders like Stalin did, the Nazis where kinder people, then the leaders of this terrorizing ruthless cult.
It is inexcusable and intolerable in today’s society to allow the abuse and neglect of our most vulnerable, especially if it is permitted under the guise of so-called “religious inclusion” as Lev Tahor has been known to be a real cult, for the longest time.
It would set a very dangerous precedent indeed, to allow the nasty leaders, Nachman & Erez Shlomo Helbranz etc. for further abuses of power under the smoke screen of religious freedom, they should be tried as the war criminals, lock them up and loose the key, forever more, they have proven to be a bunch of deceiving swindling and cheating people.
Yes. Fortunately the authorities seem to agree, and the net seems to be closing…Although it’s apparently only some of the children who are ordered removed, not all of them.
It sounds as though the Quebec and Ontario provincial departments of youth services are pushing to have all the children removed from the community and have plans for taking care of them if that happens.
Ah that’s good. Hats off to Quebec and Ontario.