Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Klosterzimmern, Bavaria, Germany · 2016

Germany: Twelve Tribes teachers convicted for doctrine-mandated rod beatings of sect children

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

teachers appointed by the Twelve Tribes community to administer its doctrine of corporal 'Züchtigung'

Organization

Zwölf Stämme (Twelve Tribes), Klosterzimmern

Spiritual nexus

The beatings were not excess but doctrine: a religious community's teaching on corporal correction, administered by teachers the community appointed, to children whose parents' faith placed them there.

Institutional obedience or isolation
Threatened spiritual consequence

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2016-06-21 · convictions

Landgericht Augsburg (appeal) and Amtsgericht Nördlingen, Germany. On 21 June 2016 the Augsburg regional court, sitting on appeal, convicted a fifty-six-year-old Twelve Tribes teacher of dangerous assault and maltreatment of persons in her care for beating at least four pupils with rods — up to thirty blows for trivial matters — and sentenced her to two years without probation, arresting her in the courtroom. A second teacher had been convicted at Nördlingen in November 2015 of dangerous assault of a fourteen-year-old pupil, receiving six months suspended and a €2,000 fine.

Appellate history

2016-06-21 · undefined

undefined

Documented coercion mechanisms

community doctrine mandating beatings with rods
children of members held inside the sect's own school

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report Der Tagesspiegel: 'Zwei Jahre Haft wegen Züchtigungen mit Rute'.: National daily's court report.
national newspaper court reporting verdict report Der Tagesspiegel: the 2015 Nördlingen conviction.: Reports the companion conviction.

Related record

Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts

← Explore all cases