CANADA/ISRAEL/GUATEMALA
National Post (Canada)
Graeme Hamilton and Peter Kuitenbrouwer | September 14, 2016
Spurred by officials in Israel, child-protection authorities in Guatemala have raided an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect whose members fled Canada in 2014 after they came under investigation.
About 200 police, crown prosecutors and representatives of the attorney general’s office executed a search warrant targeting the Lev Tahor community Tuesday, said Salvador Soto, a lawyer for the Lev Tahor community.
He said the community members responded with shock because “most of the families were asleep” when police arrived at dawn at the apartments where the Lev Tahor families live in Guatemala City’s Ninth Zone.
“They were waving around their guns, and the families were terrified,” Soto said. “They entered by force because the families wanted to keep them out.”
A statement Tuesday from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it is in close contact with Guatemalan authorities over concerns that the children of Lev Tahor members, many of them Israeli citizens, are suffering abuse.
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