Thanks to the poster who delivered the transcript at this thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=32281&site=3, I can now do a brief dissection of the Panorama program. This post is intended purely for Dub lurkers - just about everyone else here will probably have already reached similiar conclusions themselves, without a doubt.
Anonymous Sister, one of the people interviewed by Panorama, says:
Were you scared?
Terrified. There was one time my Dad told me if Id ever told anyone about this, hed rip me apart.
This is the same child that the Elders expect to voice her accusations of child abuse in front of the abuser. How much do you people want to bet that the Watchtower's Child Protection Policy was NOT written by a victim of this? These people obviously are not aware of the depths of fear experienced by victims.
When confronted, Ian Cousins confessed he was abusing his daughter. He said he was sorry so the elders sent him home with his daughter. The abuse continued. Cousins was reproved or admonished publicly by the elders but Church policy meant that no one was told why, not even his youngest daughter.
Yet another blunder by the Elders. According to the Policy, if a man confesses, then he is just reproved and is allowed to continue being with his children, even though he abused them. Truly, the Policy of the Watchtower is a powerful protection for the children!
It was announced on, the, the platform that Ian Cousins has been reproved and after that I went to one of the elders and asked well why has he been reproved and he said its because of something he did wrong, but he wouldnt tell me what it was.
Even when her sister moved out, sick of the abuse, Alison still didnt know why. She missed her sister and was lonely ... With one daughter gone, Ian Cousins turned on the other. It all began with an innocent good night kiss.
This, people, is the pits. Not only are other parents in the Congregation not informed of the reason for the reproof, but not even THE OTHER CHILDREN in that family are informed! Can we all see how well the Watchtower's Policy protects our children?
I dont want to tell my story but Ive heard the word victim too many times today and all of us are standing out here today, were standing tall and proud and saying this happened and that it cant happen and were survivors and were fighting and were not victims.
This sort of thing really makes me lose a little bit of the bitterness - that these "Sisters" could stand up to this lumbering Behemoth of a Society, and stare down it's Policy, and come out on top. Bravo.
We asked the Church for an interview to discuss the claims that theyre putting thousands of children at risk. They offered us instead some videotapes.
Yes, when faced with credible evidence of child abuse, the Society gives people video tapes. What a loving, caring Organization indeed!
Now JR Brown starts saying some very, very telling things:
The fact of the matter is we have a very aggressive policy to handle child molestation in the congregations and it is primarily designed to protect our children.
Then, when Bill Bowen phoned Bethel, look at the "aggressive policy to handle child molestation" he discovered:
You just ask him again, Now is there anything to this? If he says no, then I would walk away from it.
BB: Yep.
HQ: Leave it for Jehovah. Hell bring it out.
BB: Yep.
HQ: But dont get yourself in a jam.
These words came from the top - Bethel is where it all happens, where the guidelines are laid down, where the Governing Body rule the roost. Legal Desk effectively told Mr. Bowen to ignore the problem. At least the Elders of that Congregation in the UK told the mother of those two children to pray harder. Like that would help when their father was molesting them! Panorama's reporter sums it up very succintly when she says:
Leave it to Jehovah - that, according to thousands of victims, is the Jehovahs Witness Child Protection Policy laid bare.
What follows is some more loving, Scriptural advice from the Elders in the UK molestation case:
Time and again the girls were told to wait outside while their mother begged local elders for help. Time and again they saw her sent home to pray harder and be a better wife.
SP: Because God would not want that. It would never have occurred to me. And even if it had I would not have done it. Hes a man, hes a baptised male and hes a Ministerial Servant and I was a woman and theyre kids. And thats even worse than being a woman. These things need to stay in this room, I heard that many, many times. You need to pray about it more. I can show you my Bible. I still have it. Its all worn out. At that point I had to make a decision between God and my kids, and I knew, well at that time I knew that if I chose my kids I didnt have a prayer. But I didnt care anymore. So we lost everything in one day. Sara Poisson had no life outside the Kingdom Hall. When the congregation cast her out, she had no choice but to move away. She didnt just lose every friend she had. Overnight she was homeless, penniless, scraping a living to bring up her children. The friends theyd had openly shunned them
Look what the police say about this "policy":
JZ: Sexual abuse of children is not to be tolerated and I dont care what their reasoning was, it was faulted reasoning, they were wrong, and as far as Im concerned they were criminally negligent. Thats my take on it. BP: Even with just the childs word? With one witness? With just the mothers word, without the two witnesses their Bible tells them they need. JZ: Well unfortunately most kids dont have several witnesses observing them get raped; its an unfortunate part of it.
After this monster was taken to court for molesting his daughters, and was given a long, long sentence, here is what the Witnesses of his Congregation did.
But not everyone did believe them ... Even after he was convicted by a jury on all seventeen indictments, two dozen members of the Kingdom Hall turned up at the sentencing hearing. They all appeared to give character statements for Paul Berry.
He had already been found guilty, and they ... they found room in their hearts to stand in front of that child and say We dont believe any of it, and what they were saying was they didnt believe the child, they didnt believe in the system of justice, they didnt believe the judge, they didnt believe the jury, they didnt believe anyone except themselves.
Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that their Brother and Ministerial Servant was a paedophile, these people somehow managed to say that he was an amazing guy. How they did this, is anyone's guess. Did they think that all the inditements the Judge read out were incorrect somehow? That the incredible trauma those woman were forced to go through for years was just a fairytale of some sort? How could people possibly do something this horrific? What is wrong here?
The policeman who handled the case was even more shocked:
And I cant imagine how badly she must have felt not to have been believed by elders in her own close knit community. What a horrible blow to a child this must have been. Shame, shame on them.
As well he should have been. What a fine "Witness" he was given, eh? Well, at least he got to see the true, fanatical side of the Jehovah's Witness religion, as displayed in fine form by it's followers. This is just a sickening chain of events.
Another Brother who was abused as a child had his testimony to the Elders received equally well:
Its not so much did they believe me, did they want to believe me. I think they turned up at my house you know, I think they werent open minded, I think theyd already made their mind up before they got to my house, you know.
Once the police got their hands on the case, of course the Elders wanted to have a "word" with the victim:
The police did believe him and they tracked down a second boy whod been abused by Patti. But what happened next caused the police serious concern. An elder confronted the victims father calling the mans son a liar. The father complained to the police who warned the elder to stay away from the victims families. His excuse was that as an elder he had every right to investigate the case for himself.
Very loving, tender care here by the Elder indeed. What a fine example.
Even after Patti was convicted and sent to the clink, the Elders of his Congregation continued on their warpath, ignoring the fact that the Justice system, using professionals, had found the man guilty of molestation:
In Birmingham as in New Hampshire, the elders supported the accused. Even after Patti was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail, they didnt waver. At the next meeting in the Kingdom Hall the elders made sure the congregation knew where they stood.
There was an announcement given, saying as a body of elders, thats including every elder in Rubery, we feel as a body of elders basically this man is innocent, we believe hes innocent and the Bethel have informed us that they will do everything in their power to help this man.
At the end of the program, Ted Jaracz, a member of the Governing Body, was asked a couple of innocuous questions by the reporter:
BP: Were from the BBC Panorama programme. BP: Tell me about the database. How do you justify keeping a list of paedophiles, men in some cases who have confessed to paedophilia but you have not reported them to an authority. What justification is there for you to keep that? TJ: You know, you are from Britain. You have privacy law. A directive from the European Union. You observe that dont you? BP: So if allegations are made of child abuse, its alright to keep them private? TJ: I think that question has been answered to your satisfaction. BP: Could you just answer it now? TJ: Im not going to repeat, Im just going to tell you, you can see it all in writing. You know the Bible says do not go beyond the things that are written. We do not go beyond the things that are written.
There you have it. The Watchtower does not go beyond what is written. Their law is their law. After hearing these words, you can see just how much the GB really care for the children, all 20,000+ of them.
How much effort would it have been for Ted Jaracz to say something like "Look, we've had problems in the past with this, but we're trying hard to sort them out?" Even JR Brown is kinder and more loving than Jaracz, and that's saying quite a lot! How do these people rationalize that something written thousands of years ago by people who lived in a society where pre-teens were routinely given in marriage applies in this modern age? Part of the two witnesses rule used by the Elders is in the Old Testament - why do they selectively apply the scriptures there? Why don't they apply the whole Old Testament? You don't see Witnesses making wave offerings or sacrificing sheep and goats, do you? So then why should they refer the Elders to that law?
Was the New Testament speaking about child molestation when it touched on the Two Witness law? Was Paul saying that at least two or three people had to see an incident of molestation in order for it to be "judged" by the Elders? How does this "aggressive policy" protect the children?
Who is really being protected? Paedophiles, that's who.
A big thanks goes out to everyone who helped out with the Panorama program - you guys did a great job!
Comments, critiques, flames, etc are welcome - if you have a problem with something I've said, please don't hesitate to speak up! Thanks for your time,
[SYN]
Edited for formatting...
Edited by - SYN on 16 July 2002 13:28:40