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.