Objectors to required Spanish course take case to EU Court

Madrid, Spain, Mar 18, 2010 / 20:02 pm

Jose Luis Bazan of Professionals for Ethics announced during a press conference this week that 300 conscientious objectors to the Socialist course, “Education for the Citizenry” have filed 105 lawsuits in the EU Court against the Spanish government for violating “the fundamental rights of parents and their children.”

The organization announced that the plaintiffs will require that “provisional measures be adopted” to restrict the Spanish government from forcing children “to take the Education for the Citizenry course.”

According to Professionals for Ethics, the plaintiffs are appealing to the European Convention on Human Rights and are demanding “compensation for moral damages.”  The group has also petitioned the EU Court to “require the Spanish State to respect ideological neutrality in the educational system to prevent future violations of rights.”

“Spanish families have been forced to appeal to the EU Human Rights Court in response to the obvious lack of will on the part of the Spanish State in a conflict that has lasted for years,” Bazan said.

“The defense of the fundamental rights of the person should come before the ideology upheld by a government that does not respect the ideological freedom of its citizens,” he stressed.

Inmaculada Lopez, whose three children have objected to the course, stated that, “Neither the government of Spain nor the regional governments have given us any other option to educate our children according to our moral and religious convictions.”

The lawsuit, which is being filed by lawyers from the Alliance Defense Fund and Professionals for Ethics, will be submitted on March 19 in Strasbourg, France.