Manitoba is asking the provincial court to ban media from attending any part of a custody case involving a girl who went to school with a swastika drawn on an arm.

Child welfare workers removed the seven-year-old and her two-year-old brother from their Winnipeg home last year. The government is now asking the courts for permanent guardianship of the children but their mother is fighting to get them back.

Lawyers for Child and Family Services have filed an application to ban media outlets from covering the trial. News media outlets have until Feb. 3 to contest the motion.

Media are already bound by law not to report on anything that might identify the children.

The high-profile custody case received national attention and sparked a debate over whether children can be taken from their parents on the basis of suspected racism.

The children were taken away last year after the girl went to school with the swastika drawn on her arm and a teacher scrubbed it off. The mother helped her daughter draw it on her arm again, an act she regrets.

"It was one of the stupidest things I've done in my life but it's no reason to take my kids," the mother told CBC News at the time.

Child and Family Services case workers were alerted and went to the family's apartment, where they found neo-Nazi symbols and flags, and took custody of her son. Her daughter was taken from school.

In court documents, social workers say they're worried the parents' conduct and associations might harm the emotional well-being of the children and put them at risk.

Although she proudly wears a silver necklace that includes a swastika and has "white pride" flags in her home, the mother, who can't be named to avoid identifying her children, denies she's a neo-Nazi or white supremacist.

"A black person has a right to say black power or black pride and yet they're turning around on us and saying we're racists and bigots and neo-Nazis because we say white pride. It's hypocrisy at its finest."