I found the article online; however, I didn't check to see if it is the whole article.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7769/is_201008/ai_n56227096/
Ostracism: anyone with legal background on this forum who could help?
by Nick! 41 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
Nick!
Hi Blondie,
Thank you for reminding us of the Awake article of April 2000!
This was before the UN scandal was uncovered. And the Society had to extol the UN mission to retain their NGO membership. The article was probably written by Ciro Aulicino who, at that time, went to the UN Library every Wednesday, according to Barbara who was there.
It is difficult to explain how active JW who read those articles at the time, including myself, could not see the hypocrisy of the double standards: the WT condemns the physical, social, moral religious atrocities of both Protestants and Catholics, but cover up their own atrocious social, professional and family shunning policy. If they could, as stated in the ’50, they wouldn’t refrain from stoning the ex members.
The article following the one you quoted, also shows the same hypocrisy by extolling the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which they violate with their shunning policy.
Here what it says:
*** g004/8p.15AToolforTeachingHumanRights***
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A ToolforTeachingHumanRights
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD student Rut Jiménez Gila, who lives in Granada, Spain, was invited by her teacher to write an essay on human rights. Several weeks after completing the assignment, she was informed by the European examining body in Brussels, Belgium, that she had been chosen, along with several other students from Spain, to represent her country. She subsequently wrote the following letter to the publishers of Awake! magazine.
“I needed up-to-date information regarding human rights, and the ‘Awake!’ issue of November 22, 1998, ‘Will There Ever Be Human Rights for All?,’ provided exactly what I was looking for. To illustrate abuses of human rights, I also selected information from other ‘Awake!’ articles on the future of women and on the Holocaust. [See issues of April 8, 1998, and August 8, 1998.] During my research I realized that ‘Awake!’ contained information that I could not find in other magazines or reference works. The photographs also impressed me, and I included some of them in my report.
“Because of my prize-winning essay, I spent a week in Finland, where I was able to talk further about human rights and explain the value of the ‘Awake!’ in highlighting important issues such as this one.
“Many, many thanks for always being the first to inform us about world events. May Jehovah continue to bless you, so that millions of people can continue to benefit from this information .”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Granted, this article serves two purposes:
- Kept the UN happy, who continued to maintain the WT NGO status
- Gave the WT lots of publicity about the “value” of their publications.
But I believe that, in trying to expose the WT as violators of the Human Rights, be it legally or simply by alerting the public opinion, these articles are key because they show the double standard of the Organization.
Roberto.
-
Band on the Run
I can't believe the letter to the Awake on NGO status. How could an Awake article be instrumental in winning a prize? I assume the student is a Witness sucking up. I tried that approach in my day because I was young and gullible. In fact, in seventh grade I conclusively proved evolution was a wrong theory by using Witness literature. I copied all the citations in very old books and sought out my public library. The teacher was confounded. He was nice and knew I was a top student. I, thereafter, received a D, which almost killed me. My friends saw me carrying twenty books home and interceded. My grade was increased to a B. All the work should have garnered me an A+ with special commendation.
I always preferred Awake to WT. How could Awake supply any discussion of the tension between freedom of religion, religious autonomy and modern human rights? Admittedly, I have been away for decades and only have some idea about the UN debacle. Living in NY, we visited the UN often. The UN did whatever the US wanted in those days so it seemed so attractive. The tour guides were attractive and wore nice uniforms. My friend became a UN civil servant but, unlike me, he had facility for foreign languages. I would sit through kingdom hall and deplore the UN Witness teachings. I don't understand what great benefit they receive as a recognized ngo. They don't do relief work.
When I first started posting here, I knew from a college course that their Biblical anaylsis did not hold up. Outright lies would be a fair characterization. My personalty reacted against the cold, barren culture when I was four or five. KH meant torture. KH meant no good and not nice people. Posting here has opened my eyes to a very do what I preach but not what I do attitude. I am now Anglican and know corruption exists everyplace. When you go around screaming how you are more than superb and the only instrument of God's work on earth, you should be held to a higher standard. Such claims bring notoriety. I suffered deeply for this religion and I ache to feel some part of it was worthwhile.
Why after many decades am I so captivated by these sordid details? JW came with the mark of authority from my parents. Part of me childishly won't believe that my family was wrong b/c they remain so powerful in my mind. All those years of slowly catching on that they were BS but not being able to talk to anyone took a toll. Today is not much better. My siblings deny that the Witnesses had any impact on them. Wordly friends have no clue about the culture and teachings.
Why do I take it so seriously when others just shrug and laugh at them?
-
wannaexit
Kudos to you Roberto et al. ,
I don't know if you will get anywhere legally with the disfellowshipping practice, but I think that the publicity will do its part in tarnishing the watchtower's image. Watchtower guards its "image" to the world scrupolously. If it feels that the world is watching....perhaps they may get to the point where they will stop the disfellowshipping practice. That would be a real victory
-
dgp
Perhaps I'm too enthusiastic about the idea of exposing shunning as what it is, a violation of human rights, because I myself have no trouble at all seeing it as such. It would be very important to know whether the members of the Judiciary would see it that way. I think NGOs working in the field of human rights could be of great help. They have attorneys who know that particular legislation. And there's one of those NGO's in every country.
I don't know the Brazilian legal system, but I do know for a fact that there is a government agency in charge of promoting and defending religious "diversity". It is the "Reference Center for the Promotion and Defense of Religious Diversity Human Rights". Their homepage is here:
http://www.dhdiversidadereligiosa.com.br
It is important to highlight, again, that this is a government agency. They followed up on Sebastian Ramos campaign:
http://www.dhdiversidadereligiosa.com.br/noticias/not090.htm
I am pasting here some excerpts from their website, with my translation:
Objetivo Geral
Garantir o exercício dos direitos humanos fundamentais nos segmentos religiosos, quanto à liberdade religiosa, o respeito à livre expressão de culto e crença, e do diálogo inter religioso resguardando a inviolabilidade da liberdade de consciência e de crença, a toda a população dos segmentos religiosos, independente de sua raça, etnia, idade, orientação sexual, gênero, situação econômica e nacionalidade.
General Objective
To guaantee the exercise of the fundamental human rights of all religious persuasions, as to religious freedom, respect for freedom of religion, and inter-religious dialog to safeguard the inviolability of freedom of conscience and belief to all the members of all religious segments, regardless of their race, ethnic origin, age, sexual preference, gender, economic status or nationality.
Objetivos Específicos
- Promover e garantir os direitos humanos fundamentais e instituir uma cultura de paz, estabelecidos na Constituição Brasileira, no Art. 5º, inciso VI que diz: “ É inviolável a liberdade de consciência e de crença, sendo assegurado o livre exercício dos cultos religiosos e garantida, na forma da lei, a proteção aos locais de culto e suas liturgias”
Specific objectives
1. To promote and guarantee the fundamental human rights and create a culture of peace, as demanded by Article 5, number VI of the Brazilian Constitution, which reads "Freedom of conscience and religion are inviolable, and the free exercise of religious belief is guaranteed, just as protection of places of worship and religious ceremonies is guaranteed in the form of law".
It seems to me that their basic approach was to defend the smaller religious groups. In a way, then, it is meant to keep tabs on the Catholic Church. It is not inconceivable that they could even support the Watchtower. But, and this is a big "but" (one t), they sort of stretched their approach and published news about Sebastian Ramos.
In the United States, there is the "Center for Public Justice" http://www.cpjustice.org/node/848, which says the following:
The Center's sixth affirmation recognizes, however, that religious freedom is made possible within a just public order, not by anarchy. The limits of confessional freedom and conscientious objection must be found, therefore, in the requirements of public safety, the peaceful resolution of conflict, and the just treatment of every citizen. Religions that want to practice child sacrifice should not be told that they cannot make that confession, but that such a practice violates government's duty to protect the life of every citizen. Groups that believe the state ought to have an established church are not required by government to give up their faith, but only to submit to the law that gives equal treatment to all faiths.
I agree with Wannaexit. The point is not so much to get governments to take steps, but to let public opinion know about shunning, so the Governing Body will react to the pressure.
-
Nick!
It is nice we are having this exchange of thoughts.
I just want to underline what the issue is, to see if we can have a larger consensus.
What, I believe, we do not argue about is the following:
- the right of any religious movement to establish admittance and exit policies
- the right of any individual to completely exclude someone from his social relationships
N.B. The above has nothing to do with Human Rights infringement
What, I believe, we do condemn is the following:
- teaching hate, shunning and discrimination of a given group of persons, in particular, in this case, those who decide to use of their Human Right to change religion, or simply to abandon their current religious movement or church
- punishing members of their religious community for not abiding by their teachings of shunning and discriminating those who made their decision to quit because of their right to a different opinion than the one taught by the religious community leadership
N.B. The above is a violation of the Declaration of Human Right, articles 18 and 19
One point which denotes how coward and hypocrite the WT is on this subject.
In the Awake article quoted by Blondie of April 8 th 2000, the WT, to condemn the past protestant and catholic religious intolerance by using the Declaration of Human Rights as the base, refers to article 18 which “ recognizes ‘the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion,’ including the freedom to change one’s religion and to teach and practice it” but omits what the next article says about the same subject.It is obviously profitable for the WT to underline the “right to change religion”, because of the potential to see many move from the “intolerant” protestant and catholic churches they condemn, to the “only pure Organization”, theirs in this case.
Here is what article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights says:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinionswithout interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers
If the WT would respect this article, instead of just insisting that others have the right to respect article 18 and transfer from their current religion to the JW, then all current JW who have reached the conclusion that the JW Organization is not God’s organization, would be free to leave the JW Organization without fearing to be shunned and, thus, could continue to retain their current social and family relationships, even if their changing religion would imply a formal form of announcement that the person has “exercised its Human Right to change religion, as per article 18 of the Human Rights, but that we, Jehovah Witnesses will not interfere with his decision by shunning him, according to article 19 of the same Declaration of Human Rights”.
If this would even happen, which I sincerely doubt, the WT will finally be free to talk about the religious intolerance of the past protestant and catholic churches!
If not, they better shut up and be exposed in the same way they have exposed their competition.
-
lifelong humanist
Hi Roberto
It has been very interesting observing the responses to your thread.
I'm sure that by now, everyone reading the postings will be absolutely certain of the goal that you, and many like-minded, decent ex-JWs (and those living with current JW family ties) would dearly love to achieve.
I fully agree with your well written synopsis, just posted, and look forward to the next developments, when high-profile cases come to the attention of the EU Court of Human Rights.
You should feel proud of your accomplishments so far, and arriving at a consensus on the primary objectives. This, surely, could well prove to be the small beginnings of something quite powerful - a 'dumbing down' of such an 'in-your-face', actively pursued shunning policy craftilly manipulated by WT.
Kind regards
lifelong humanist
-
wobble
Ciao Roberto,
many thanks for bringing this issue to our attention, I do believe we can make it a real problem for the WT.
Anyone contemplating a "legal" letter to the Elders to stop them DFing, should also refer to Articles 18 and 19 of HRA being contravened by the proposed action of the Elders.
-
onemore
Nick,
I believe that Article 1 of the Mexican Constitution contains a provision, that could be used as a basis to bright forth the claim that by enforcing a shunning/Ostracism policy against its former members, the Watchtower is encouraging and promoting the violation of the human rights of the Mexican ex JWs. Article 1 of the Mexican Constitution states:
“This article states that every individual in Mexico (official name, Estados Unidos Mexicanos or United Mexican States) has the rights that the Constitution gives. These rights cannot be denied and they cannot be suspended. Slavery is illegal in Mexico; any slaves from abroad who enter national territory will, by this mere act, be freed and given the full protection of the law. All types of discrimination whether it be for ethnic origin, national origin, gender, age, different capacities, social condition, health condition, religion, opinions, preferences, or civil state or any other which attacks human dignity and has as an objective to destroy the rights and liberties of the people are forbidden.”
Here are some other interesting facts that could be used to find out what is the REAL status of the Watchtower legal entities in Mexico. I believe that if some Mexican ex JWs organized themselves to bring a complaint against the WT for Ostracism, that there is a good chance that the court will at least hear the complaint.
The 1992 Law on Religious Associations and Public Worship defines the administrative remedies that protect the right to religious freedom. In August 2001, a provision was added to the Constitution that establishes for the first time a constitutional prohibition against any form of discrimination, including discrimination against persons on the basis of religion
Religious associations must register with the Under Secretariat of Religious Affairs of the Federal Secretariat of Government (SSAR) to operate legally. Although the Government rejects applications because of incomplete documentation, the registration process is routine. An estimated 6,619 religious associations are registered.
To be registered as a religious association, a group must articulate its fundamental doctrines and religious beliefs, must not be organized primarily to make money, and must not promote acts physically harmful or dangerous to its members.Religious groups must be registered to apply for official building permits, to receive tax exemptions, and to hold religious meetings outside of their places of worship.
The SSAR promotes religious tolerance and investigates cases of religious intolerance. All religious associations have equal access to the SSAR for registering complaints.
It will be interesting to see what could happen if the Mexican ex JW file a complaint of “religious intolerance” against the Watchtower.
Onemore (unomas)
-
onemore
Nick,
I believe that Article 1 of the Mexican Constitution contains a provision, that could be used as a basis to bright forth the claim that by enforcing a shunning/Ostracism policy against its former members, the Watchtower is encouraging and promoting the violation of the human rights of the Mexican ex JWs. Article 1 of the Mexican Constitution states:
“This article states that every individual in Mexico (official name, Estados Unidos Mexicanos or United Mexican States) has the rights that the Constitution gives. These rights cannot be denied and they cannot be suspended. Slavery is illegal in Mexico; any slaves from abroad who enter national territory will, by this mere act, be freed and given the full protection of the law. All types of discrimination whether it be for ethnic origin, national origin, gender, age, different capacities, social condition, health condition, religion, opinions, preferences, or civil state or any other which attacks human dignity and has as an objective to destroy the rights and liberties of the people are forbidden.”
Here are some other interesting facts that could be used to find out what is the REAL status of the Watchtower legal entities in Mexico. I believe that if some Mexican ex JWs organized themselves to bring a complaint against the WT for Ostracism, that there is a good chance that the court will at least hear the complaint.
The 1992 Law on Religious Associations and Public Worship defines the administrative remedies that protect the right to religious freedom. In August 2001, a provision was added to the Constitution that establishes for the first time a constitutional prohibition against any form of discrimination, including discrimination against persons on the basis of religion
Religious associations must register with the Under Secretariat of Religious Affairs of the Federal Secretariat of Government (SSAR) to operate legally. Although the Government rejects applications because of incomplete documentation, the registration process is routine. An estimated 6,619 religious associations are registered.
To be registered as a religious association, a group must articulate its fundamental doctrines and religious beliefs, must not be organized primarily to make money, and must not promote acts physically harmful or dangerous to its members.Religious groups must be registered to apply for official building permits, to receive tax exemptions, and to hold religious meetings outside of their places of worship.
The SSAR promotes religious tolerance and investigates cases of religious intolerance. All religious associations have equal access to the SSAR for registering complaints.
It will be interesting to see what could happen if the Mexican ex JW file a complaint of “religious intolerance” against the Watchtower.
Onemore (unomas)