Investigation has begun concerning the pressures which a young witness of Jéhovahs Witness, Remi, may have undergone regarding leukemia and his rejecting a transfusion. The young man left a private clinic after receiving visitors, a Jéhovahs Witness refusing blood transfusion because of his religious convictions (Le Monde, April 11).
He left the residence of his mother in Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais) for an unknown destination but is currently working in Germany. His lawyer, Mr Frank Berton of the Lille legal bar says the young man, 21 years old, will be hospitalized in " a great research center" and is awaiting a bone-marrow graft. French medicine affirms that any precondition to chemotherapy is a transfusion. Remi wants to see whether there is not another mode of treatment", explains Mr. Berton. The doctors whom the young man had consulted in France had given him only a few weeks to live, if he did not quickly undergo a blood transfusion followed by chemotherapy.
Remi's father, who does not belong to Jéhovah's Witnesses and deplores his son's decision, does not plan judicial action for the moment. He has been without news of his son for three days. According to our information, officials at Boulogne-sur-Mer should be opening a preliminary investigation, following work by the ADFI (Association for the Defense of Families and the Individual) of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie. It would relate to the conditions under which the young man left the private clinic of Saint-Martin-Boulogne (Pas-de-Calais) by signing a discharge. Preliminaries highlight that Remi received, during his stay in the medical establishment, the visit of several JWs who may have pressured him. The investigation could lead to litigtion for " non-assistance of someone in danger " (=wrongful death) and, possibly, abuse.
This affair could obstruct legal recognition as a Cultural Association (roughly = group getting nonprofit benefits like tax breaks with official status) which Jehovah's Witnesses have tried to obtain from French administration for several years. Until now judiciaries have systematically spoken against JWs to the government. In two instances on June 23 2000, the Council of State decided that two their associations could not profit from real estate exemptions existing for recognized cultural associations because they did not comply with law and order and "had incited- their members to commit offences, in particular that of non-assistance to persons in danger." Xavier Ternisien (LE MONDE April 14, 2001)
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