POLES’ HUNGER STRIKE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29378, 3 December 1960, Page 15

POLES’ HUNGER STRIKE

Couple Gaoled For Vagrancy

(A/.Z Press Association—Copqriqht) SYDNEY, December 2. A Polish couple who went on a 50-hour “hunger strike” in Sydney this week were excommunicated from the Jehovah’s Witness Church six months ago, church officials said today. They alleged that the couple, Mr and Mrs T. Hopej. o>f West Guilford, a western suburb, had been upsetting their congregation with “strange ideas.” Mr and Mrs Hopej went on their “strike” on Tuesday morning after a Bankstown Magistrate had made their seven-year-old son. Stefan, a ward of the State. Stefan was charged with being a neglected child because he had not attended school for two months. Hopei and his wife sat on the q teps of the courthouse intending to stav there, they said, until “they died.” if their son was not returned to them. Police arrested them yesterday on. a charge of vagrancy. Later they were remanded until December 15. They were taken to Long Bav Gaol today, but officials there refused to sav whether the couple haH eaten anything vet. The head of the Jehovah’* Witness Church in Australia. Mr D D. S, Held, said todav Hopej had been excommunicated because he insisted that Witnesses’ children born in Australia « r ere not Australian citizens. “As far as we are concerned, they no longer irp members of our church.” he said.

Before the arrest Hopej said he refused to let Stefan go to school became teachers had made him salute the Australian flag and attend religious classes. A spokesman for the Education Department said tndqv it was not mandatory for children even to “repeat” the Lord’s Prayer. “It is logical that to some schools the Lord’s P-aver may be recited at assembly, but if a narent objects to a child taking nsd in anv observance, which wnuM include repeatin'* f he Lord’s Prayer, all the parent has to do is to send a note to the headmaster or headmistress, and the parents wishes will be respected,” he said.