The two witness rule

dgp

Suppose an active Jehovah's witness sees a worldly person abusing a worldly child; for example, touching her genitals, and the witness goes to the Police. The worldly police will take action.

Now, suppose the same Jehovah's witness also sees a witness abusing a witness child in the same way, touching her genitals. The witness knows he can't go to the elders because there are not two witnesses to the fact.

Does the witness get to think that there is something very wrong about the two witnesses rule? Does he get to think that the worldlies will be quicker to act and prevent abuse?

Does the "two witness rule" apply only to sexual offenses, or to any other?

Titus

You can go to police, no matter if elders will take a judicial action in congregation or not.

Mad Sweeney

You can go to police, Titus, but you can't talk about it within the congregation without being brought up for "slander."

Out at Last!

The 2 witness rule applies to any accusation made against another witness.

dgp

Does this mean that you can accuse a worldly with less corroboration than you could accuse another witness?

Titus

And you don't need to, MS. If police arrests that man, everybody will know. You don't need to tell them.

Titus

Have you ever heard about "Pedophiles Register"? I am speaking about police database.

Is that database made public in United States? I think (if I remember it good) that somebody tried to make it public in UK.

To be honest - I support that idea! But there are some laws that forbid that...

But I really hope that they will allow that some day.

Lozhasleft

Even crazier in some ways is that JWs count 'wordly' witnesses to a crime, invalid. When my ex threw me from a jeep and punched me in the face, it was seen by 5 worldly people who were at their property where he'd stopped the jeep. The elders refused to consider their testimonies when my ex denied what he'd done. The elders came to me and suggested that possibly I had injured myself to get him into trouble ???!!!! Some months later just before his court case (which was brought by the Prosecution Service in fact) the ex put in a plea of guilty.

I got no apologies of course.

Loz x

truthseekeriam

Hi Titus,

Not true.

When I went to police the molester was arrested, we were awaken in the middle of the night by an officer informing us he was released on bail. No one other then those involved knew anything. We were told not to talk to others about what happened...because we wouldn't want to slander our brother. A bit later after we were harassed at a court appearance by one of his family member(active JW) my husband approached an elder and informed him of what happened..again we were the ones told to keep in control and not to cause divisions by talking to others.

We at no time felt like the victims in this case, but instead were treated as if we did something wrong.

Unless you live it and see for yourself I'm sure I will never convince you that things aren't done as you would think they would be. I just hope you never have to find out.

Mad Sweeney

Titus, most USA jurisdictions that I am aware of (maybe all) have a public database of "convicted" pedophiles, as well as some other violent domestic criminals. But the law says "innocent until proven guilty in court" here, and court cases take years to finally come to a conclusion. In the meantime a guy is usually free to continue child-rape unless the victim(s) are able to speak out publicly and warn others. In the JW congregations, the victims should have the right to free speech and potential victims should have the right to fair warning. Neither of these things are the case. Nothing goes public until the trial and if the elders have their way, these things don't get to trial at all.

The two witness rule

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