Interesting link from Halifax:
http://www.canada.com/halifax/dailynews/story.asp?id=814CBFD5-E790-446D-BD6D-B405614A4944
Tomorrow. . . . Wednesday is the show . . . pplz!!!
Love ya,
ESTEE
TRANSCRIPT: The Fifth Estate PREVIEW
by Scully 52 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
-
-
UnDisfellowshipped
HALIFAX (Canada.com) News
http://www.canada.com/halifax/dailynews/story.asp?id=814CBFD5-E790-446D-BD6D-B405614A4944
CBC uncovers surprising revelations
By Lindsay Brown - Television
The Daily NewsWednesday, January 29, 2003
Tonight's edition of the fifth estate (CBC at 9 p.m.) is sure to send shock waves rippling through communities across the country.
The documentary's title, Spiritual Shepherds, refers to the elders in the Jehovah's Witness Church. Their job is to protect members of their flock. And indeed they do, vigilantly, we learn. But, as becomes devastatingly clear, only certain ones.
The story starts with a young woman named Holly, formerly a member of the Jehovah's community. She was sexually abused by her stepfather from the age of two onwards, as was the daughter he later had with Holly's mother. He began beating Holly's mother on the night of their wedding day. Holly relates that, by age five, she knew how to please her stepfather sexually.
Holly's mother repeatedly went to the spiritual shepherds for help, but was told to go back home and be a better wife, while her husband was promoted ever higher in the church. Publicly, the church's policy, straight from world HQ in Brooklyn, N.Y., is that members must adhere to the law and report abuse to the authorities. But that has never happened. The church's own handbook on dealing with sexual abuse says that action can be taken only after the accuser confronts the abuser face-to-face and produces a witness to the alleged abuse.
Think about that scenario, for a second.
After some years, Holly's mother finally escaped with her daughters, but later Holly went further; she went to the police. Her stepfather was eventually sentenced to 56 years on 21 counts of abuse, even though during his trial, Witnesses showed up in droves to support him, and to shun Holly and her mother and sister.
Holly is only one victim and her stepfather is only one among many thousands of others like him; in the Canadian church alone, we learn, there are 24,000 names of alleged abusers on a secret, internal list. Bill Bowen, who left the church two years ago and now campaigns against it on this issue, calls it a pedophile's paradise.
But now there's a crack in the fortress walls, and the council of 11 men in New York who are considered vessels for the word of God may be facing not Armageddon the day when everyone except Witnesses dies a fiery death but public scrutiny. Let's hope it's hot, and fiery, and never dies down.
Theres more of the thing CBC does best on TV investigative journalism tomorrow night on Witness with a documentary called Security Threat (9 p.m.). Here we learn how, post-9/11, willing people seem to have become to trade their privacy for a sense of security. This security shorter chains and smaller cages as one privacy advocate calls it involves much more than airport check-ins.
The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators for instance, which has members in every province and state in North America, is co-ordinating with Canadians on plans for a standardized driver's licence for millions of North Americans. This would mean that a record of a body part retina scan, fingerprint would be required for your licence, which, in effect, means you may end up owning an international I.D. card without even knowing it.
We also learn that the security biz is booming and that facial recognition is in the forefront of identification techniques. And we see some frightening examples of post-9/11 hysteria involving Canadian citizens whose crime was to have brown skin and black moustaches, and how they're treated by U.S. authorities.
Big brother is definitely watching.
[email protected]
_______________________________________________________________For more information on child abuse cover-ups inside the Jehovah's Witnesses Organization, visit http://www.silentlambs.org or E-Mail the Silentlambs Organization at [email protected]
For more information about the CBC Canadian Television News Show, visit http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=44236&site=3&page=1
Edited by - UnDisfellowshipped on 29 January 2003 0:59:34
-
Scully
Spiritual Shepherds