MAJOR UN/WTS NEWS- UN LETTER & 1992 Press R...

by hawkaw 589 Replies latest watchtower scandals

• 

  mommy

  Hey all

  I just recieved this in email..Thanks Tribolite. I can't find a link for it though. It is the latest article from Steven Bates, posted at the Guardian. If this has been posted sorry.

  Jehovah's Witnesses beat a hasty retreat after UN affiliation exposed
  Controversy Stephen Bates

  Stephen Bates

  The elderly and reclusive leadership of the New York-based Jehovah's Witnesses fundamentalist religious sect beat a hasty and unusual retreat last week after being accused by followers of hypocrisy for secretly affiliating to the United Nations, an organisation it condemns in virulent terms.

  The decision to abandon its NGO status came within two days of the Guardian's revelation that it had been associated with the organisation it damns as the scarlet-coloured beast from the Book of Revelation for the past nine years.

  The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, as the sect, which has 6m members worldwide, is formally called, denounced the UN as "a disgusting thing in the sight of God and his people" in a publication circulated to followers only three years ago.

  Yet NGOs affiliating to the UN are supposed to show that they support the ideals of its charter, demonstrate an interest in UN issues, have the ability to reach large and specialised audiences, and have the commitment and means to conduct effective information programmes about UN activities.

  In fact the Witnesses' leaders have spent 80 years attacking the world body and its predecessor, the League of Nations, as Babylon the Great, the harbingers of world domination.
  
  One Witness said: "There is a glaring inconsistency which has emerged between the WTBTS's frequent portrayal of the UN as an evil organisation and its behind-the-scenes attempts to curry favour with that organisation. By no stretch of the imagination could the WTBTS be considered to share the ideals of the UN charter unless you suppose that destruction of the UN by God is consistent with that charter."

  News of the affiliation caused consternation among followers and former members alike, who bombarded the UN for confirmation. Loyalists claimed that the news had been spread by apostates and even tried to claim that the UN's website, listing 1,500 affiliated NGOs, must have been forged or infiltrated.

  In a written statement Paul Hoeffel, chief of the UN's NGO section, said: "The organisation applied for association . . . in 1991 and was granted association in 1992. By accepting association . . . [it] agreed to meet criteria . . .including support and respect of the principles of the charter of the UN. In October 2001 the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York requested termination . . . [the UN] has made a decision to disassociate [it] as of 9 October."

  A UN spokeswoman described the sect's attitude as "really strange" and
  questioned why the organisation had ever thought the Witnesses qualified for affiliation, given the vehemence of the sect's denunciation of the UN. NGO affiliation does not attract financial support but does confer status, and critics believe that the WTBTS affiliated in order to give it respectability with sceptical governments, such as France's, which have refused to recognise
  the sect.

  The row is the latest to rock the sect, which is governed from Brooklyn by a secretive group of elders. Followers who criticise their decisions are often "disfellowshipped", which means that other members, including even family members, are instructed to shun them.
  The extreme literalness of their interpretation of the Bible has led to controversial instructions such as ordering members to refuse to accept blood transfusions even at the risk of death. A decision, taken by a vote of eight to four by the leadership last year, apparently after a divine revelation, modified this to allow the
  acceptance of blood components so long as there was subsequent repentance.

  Disaffected former followers have also been outraged at the sect's procedures for dealing with allegations of child abuse. These insist that there must be two independent witnesses - an almost impossible stipulation - before accusations are investigated. Private instructions to elders in Britain suggest that documentary evidence should be burned.

  While worried followers were told by their elders that the accusation of affiliation to the UN was rubbish, the Witnesses' British spokesman, Paul Gillies, insisted: "We do not have hostile attitudes to governing bodies, and if we are making representations on issues to the UN we will do so. We believe what the Book of Revelation tells us, but we do not actively try to change the
  political system."

  The Guardian Weekly 18-10-2001, page 23

  Still looking for a link, or perhaps it isn't online yet?
  wendy
  edited to make a bit easier to read

  Blind faith can justify anything.~Richard Dawkins
• 

  hawkaw

  Mad A.,

  I agree. It really hits the hypocrisy home.

  As for the audience picking it up - I think some do and of course others just think real simple - ie. WTS support UN Charter which means support beast.

  I don't think a lot fully yet grasp the ramifications and what this "cult" has been doing behind everyone's back. Keep up the good work and don't quit posting. A lot of information has been uncovered quite quickly (within 2 months). We will get it sorted out in the near future. People like Wendy, Randy and Kent are picking up the ball.

  Hey did you read my Email this am? What do you think of DPI now? I told Steve Bates about it.

  Wanna - There is an annual brochure (the one for 2002 is being printed as I type) that besides a number of things lists all the NGO associated with DPI and are on a "consultative" basis with ECOSOC.

  hawk
• 

  hawkaw

  Wendy,

  You won't find it on the internet.

  Steve said it is in the weekly edition. I have been trying to get my hands on a copy and get it scanned for Kent et. al. This is the first time I have even read it.

  Steve also told me something more should be in this Saturday's Guardian as well as long as the war issue don't get in the way.

  hawk
• 

  hawkaw

  Wendy and others,

  I picked up the Guardian and am scanning it.

  I will send it to Kent to have page 23 posted here and at Kent's site. This article is much better than the edited one Steve had in the Monday paper.

  Oh, BTW Steve has just made up another article for his paper on the JWs. Its a killer but it still has to go through the editor. I am now unclear if t will be in the wekly tab or the Sat. paper.

  HOLD ON HELP IS ON THE WAY!!!!

  hawk
• 

  Ranchette

  Hawk,

  Great can't wait!

  Ranchette
• 

  hawkaw

  Okay guys,

  I have sent the scanned versions on the Guardian Weekly Oct 18 to Oct 24, 2001 to Wendy, Kent and Randy and my other good buddy bx. I would send it to a lot of others but I just don't have the time.

  Thus, I have asked Kent to post the best scanned version on this thread here and get Kent and Randy to post it on their web sites.

  This is a really killer article folks and Steve just won't let this puppy die. Oh just incase you think the article is a hoax I have made 5 scans showing the front page, date, volume number and date. I have given different angles to prove you are reading page 23 of the Guardian. One thing you may notice is that this is the Canadian version of the Guardian which is published in the UK but printed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

  Thanks Wendy for pointing the article out to me.

  LET'S ROLL!!!!!!

  hawk
• 

  OhHappyDay

  Anybody noticed?
  The WTBTS is not listed on the directory any more. Must have been removed today. I checked it out on a regular basis.
  Happy Day!
• 

  hawkaw

  As I reported earlier, it was the day before.

  Now it is time to use the Hoeffel letter and newspaper articles and get a press release going.

  Take care buddy

  hawk
• 

  cecil

  just to tell you, that a danish newspaper is preparing a major article on the subject right now (scheduled for sometime next week). A swedish editor and a german weekly magazine, that I have been in contact with by e-mail and phone, consider the subject as well...

  cecil

  a PS fyi: the danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad (something like: "christian daily") aired an article today about "accusation of sexual abuse in a Jehovahs Witness-family". I'm not aware if the artícle was in the printed issue as well (haven't received it yet). But I think it's interesting that it mentions silentlambs.org!
  * http://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/nytomkirke/artikel:aid=8960
• 

  MadApostate

  Is this what constitutes being politically neutral, as well as avoidance of interfaith functions?

  -----------------------------------------------
  EDITED:
  
  TAKING RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS SERIOUSLY: THE IMPACT OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTIONS ON HUMAN RIGHTS'

  IMPERIAL COLLEGE,
  LONDON,

  JANUARY 6 AND 7, 1999.
  
  
  Report from Paul Stevenson,
  Britain correspondent for
  Human Rights Without Frontiers.
  *****************************************************
  
  
  HRWF (13.01.1999) - Can changes in the law change attitudes? Can winning cases in the European Court of Human Rights win arguments? Will implementing the new UK Human Rights Act establish religious freedom and respect for the beliefs of minorities, including the 2,600 new religions?

  Which is likelier to protect our freedom in Britain to believe and worship as we choose: the unwritten British constitution with its 'tradition of tolerance' built up over the centuries, or the European Convention on Human Rights?
  
  Fifty-five lawyers, academics, human rights activists, and representatives of various religious traditions who attended a two-day seminar at Imperial College, London, on January 6 and 7 to debate the probable impact of the Human Rights Act on the religious freedom of the 750,000,000 people of the EC's 14 member states, were cautiously optimistic. Some of the lawyers -and Willy Fautré-took the pragmatic view, that only the admonitory effect of losing landmark cases under Articles 8 and 9 of the Human Rights Act -like Kokkinakis v. Greece (1993) and Hoffman v. Austria (1993)-would cause member states to temper what Willy Fautré called "the hysterical anti-cult atmosphere" emanating from France and other states that are adopting a similar approach to minority religions.
  
  Others, like Anthony Bradney, University of Leicester senior law lecturer, held that "a new activist judiciary" with access to a different European jurisprudence would ensure believers' being "nurtured by the state" and "more fully valued as citizens", concluding that although in some areas "the impact of the Act will … be slight," overall, "it is going to have a huge effect on the relationship between religion and the law." His colleague, Peter Cumper, raised the possibility of judges ruling on issues which were essentially matters of religious doctrine; but thought that, on
  balance, erosion of religious freedom in a land where the Queen is both Head of State and Head of the established church, would be countered by the courts' "putting a British spin on the Human Rights Act."
  
  Still others, including Roger Ballard of the University of Manchester's Department of Religions, found the ECHR to be so "hedged around with limitations in the area of practice that it is unlikely to offer any significant advance". Norman Doe, senior lecturer and Director of the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff Law School, reviewed the history of
  litigation involving disaffected members of the Jewish, Islamic, Sikh, Hindu and Anglican faiths. He concluded that the new UK legislation was unlikely to lead to wholesale reversal of the decision of ecclesiastical courts in such areas as canon law, discipline of members, freedom of information, and marriage.
  
  Dr David Robertson, Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford, said that the choice is between two different approaches: the "highly developed jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court" with its wall between church and State, and the jurisprudence of the ECHR which tends "towards privileging the claims of religion against the claim of those who are … hostile to religion." The new Act "would seem to incline the UK courts towards the European approach, but cultural factors and the natural tendency of the UK's higher courts are likely to lean them towards the American approach."
  
  This latter point was taken up enthusiastically by Philip Brumley, general counsel to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses: "A bedrock liberty of Anglo-American common and constitutional law is that issues of religious belief are an absolute freedom and that religious practices may be
  circumscribed only by a compelling State interest. Even then, the State must find the least restrictive means to achieve this interest…. the Anglo-American tradition has been to allow the individual to determine which belief he will profess, if any at all."
  
  He contrasted this with the German Enquete Commission's collection of
  evidence about religious minorities in secret, from interested parties, and without rigorous examination of objective credentials or allowing for cross-examination or refutation. The ensuing 1998 report suggested that granting public corporation status to religious organisations "considered in the light of the increasingly enigmatic market in religious and ideological groups offering salvation, as well as others, could develop into a type of government quality stamp, in which 'consumers' would have
  special confidence."
  
  Philip Brumley said that "right across Europe governments are informing their populaces of which religions have so-called 'government consumer protect seals of approval' and which religions are disfavoured. Events in Europe clearly show that even fundamental religious freedoms that one would have only recently considered to be beyond impeachment are now very seriously hanging in the balance." He pointed to M. Alain Vivien, Chairman of the French Interministerial Mission to Fight Against Cults, who had railed against America's First Amendment precisely because it precludes state evaluation of religious belief. His hope is that: "cooler minds will prevail in the question of how society should view new religious movements and those who belong to minority religions... Perhaps aided by Italy, Denmark and Sweden, the United Kingdom will take the lead in protecting
  religious liberties, and in dissipating religious prejudice wherever it is found."
  
  Several academic contributors saw the rising religious intolerance engendered by professional 'anti-cultists' in Europe as a social rather than a legal malaise. Professor Eileen Barker, from the London School of Economics' Department of Sociology, outlined how anti-cultism (described by Martyn Percy, a director of the Lincoln Institute for the Study of Religion and Society as "today's anti-Semitism") operates. Its practitioners apply the label 'cult' or 'sect' to minority religions, with the inference that
  these are "nasty, satanic, unnatural, not normal". They compile emotive but unscientific reports, mainly from ex-members' testimony, and put what they stigmatise as 'dangerous cults' on 'hit lists'. These may have no standing in law, but have powerful persuasive effect. This has led to citizens being unable to rent property, to punitive taxation of minority religious bodies by the State, to children being excluded from school, or being arbitrarily removed from parents in disputed custody cases, and to the police turning a blind eye to violence and kidnapping.
  
  "Laws and Conventions can certainly suggest, but they cannot dictate the way we treat 'the other'. The same can be said of the media, the educational system, the workplace and the family," Professor Barker said. She gave an example of discrediting by use of selective terminology: "Compare these two statements; the children were brought up as Catholics, and the children were indoctrinated by their Witness parents."
  
  Some comments from the delegates :
  ...Vedhyas Adbutha, a monk in the Mandorom monastery in the south of France, said his hope for the ECHR was "for us to be respected, and to get our rights in France. Since 1988 we have been asking to be recognised as a congregation, but officials treat us with contempt. They use planning and tax laws to make us look like criminals, but we have never been convicted of any offence."