defender of truth

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Posts by defender of truth

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  10

  The Particulars of Claim in Otuo v Morley and Watch Tower

  by akromo in

  1. social
  2. current

  in the high court of justice claimno: hq14d02898 .

  queens bench division.

  1. this is a claim in slander against the first and second defendant..

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  defender of truth

  @Skedaddle

  That is an interesting story. I had no idea there were similar cases that have been won. Thanks for sharing that. :)

  This case could be landmark - human rights act is up in two sections.
  

  Here is the Watchtower's response to that, from the other thread.

  Paragraph 22 of the Amended Particulars of Claim is denied.

  The European Convention of Human Rights is not directly binding on the Defendants. In any event, even if the Claimant could establish that the words complained of constituted actionable slander and were not spoken on an occasion protected by qualified privilege, which is denied, given the context in which the words complained of were spoken,

  the words spoken could not and did not interfere with the Claimant’s right to respect for his private and family life.
  

  53.Paragraph 26 of the Re-Amended Particulars of Claim is denied.

  The European Convention of Human Rights is not directly binding on the Defendants. Furthermore, the Claimant’s claim under Article 9 appears to arise in relation to his disfellowshipping which is not the subject of this claim and is in any event non-justiciable before the secular court.

  The Defendants aver that Article 9 in conjunction with Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to determine the membership of a religious community as held by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Sindicatul “Păstorul cel Bun” v. Romania (no. 2330/09, 136, 137, 165, 9 July 2013).

  www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5633567157649408/watch-towers-ridiculous-defence-otuo-v-morley-watch-tower
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  13

  Good article - Are Jehovah's Witnesses a religious Ponzi scheme?

  by defender of truth in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  www.the-newshub.com/general/are-jehovahs-witness-a-religious-ponzi-scheme

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  defender of truth

  www.the-newshub.com/general/are-jehovahs-witness-a-religious-ponzi-scheme
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  14

  Watch Tower's ridiculous Defence in Otuo v Morley and Watch Tower

  by akromo in

  1. social
  2. current

  in the high court of justice queen’s bench division .

  frank kofi otuo .

  jonathan david morley .

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  defender of truth

  Thank you for posting this.

  Is there anywhere online that we can read all of this, and get updates on the case?

  Paragraph 21 of the Re-Amended Particulars of Claim is denied that the Defendants have “barred” any members of the Claimant’s family from seeing him.
  

  This was to be expected, really.

  How can you hold the organization responsible legally, when the decision to shun is, from a legal standpoint, an individual decision?...
  
• 
  69

  Could the Independent Inquiry in England and Wales expose jw.org's child abuse failures? And how can we help?

  by defender of truth in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  with all the talk about the org's policies and failures regarding child sexual abuse being publically exposed in australia, i thought that it may be a good time to highlight this... i apologise if this has already been discussed, but on the 9th of july the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in england and wales was opened.

  here is some information regarding it's aims.. "about the inquiry.

  the inquiry offers an unprecedented opportunity to examine the extent to which institutions and organisations in england and wales have taken seriously their responsibility to protect children.. the inquiry will investigate a wide range of institutions including:.

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  defender of truth

  @Anyone who shared their story with the Independent Inquiry, just a reminder that the Charity Commission would like to hear your story as well.

  "The commission’s inquiry into how Watch Tower safeguards children and adults at risk continues. The commission is committed to robustly investigating allegations that charities do not have adequate safeguarding policies and practices. It encourages people who have been affected by safeguarding in congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in England and Wales to make contact with the inquiry lead investigator Jonathan Sanders at

  [email protected]

  Members of the public can contact the commission with any safeguarding or other concerns about charities via Complain about a charity."

  www.gov.uk/government/news/court-of-appeal-gives-judgment-in-court-case-by-jehovahs-witness-charity
  
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  9

  Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't: Religious Shunning and the free exercise clause

  by defender of truth in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the following link is to a pdf file found on the penn law legal scholarship repository website.. " the penn law legal scholarship repository is the institutional repository of the university of pennsylvania law school.

  its purpose is to collect and preserve the scholarly output of penn law.

  http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/.

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  defender of truth

  It was written nearly 30 years ago, but here is the author, should anyone wish to contact him.
  ------------
  "Author: Justin K. MillerPublication: University of Pennsylvania Law Review
  Date: 11/1988 "
  www.scholarship.law.upenn.edu/penn_law_review/vol137/iss1/6/
  "Justin graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, cum laude, in 1989, where he was a Comment Editor for the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and Order of the Coif. He received a B.A., magna cm laude, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983."
  www.larssonlaw.com/team/attorneys/justin-k-miller/
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  12

  TheAtlantic.com - Disowning a Daughter Over a Church

  by defender of truth in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a reader from south carolina has a heartbreaking story:" i am 31 years old.

  i was raised in a strict bi-cultural (af-american and nigerian) jehovah’s witness family, one of six children.

  though it’s generally looked down upon for jws to attend liberal arts universities (vocational schools are recommended), i somehow convinced my parents to allow me to go to university and major in theater (!!

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  defender of truth

  The article has been updated, with more stories from disfellowshipped Jw's.

  www.theatlantic.com/notes/all/2016/03/choosing-your-religion/475164/#note-477207
  
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  26

  Sir David Eady to give judgement on the Watctower Appeal in the Otuo v Morley and Watch Tower case at the High Court tommorrow

  by Adwoa Kromo in

  1. forum
  2. announcements

  sir david eady sitting as high court judge will hand down judgement tomorrow at 11:00am in the appeal of the decision from master leslie for refusing to strike out the claim as an abuse of process.

  in his judgement in november 2014 he stated in his judgement delivered ex-tempore " i am bound to say that this case causes me a good deal of trouble".

  from notes that i have from the hearing last week, i will be utterly surprised if the retired judge sir david eady takes a different view.

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  defender of truth

  Any further updates on this case?

  I would love for him to win this :)
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  9

  Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't: Religious Shunning and the free exercise clause

  by defender of truth in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the following link is to a pdf file found on the penn law legal scholarship repository website.. " the penn law legal scholarship repository is the institutional repository of the university of pennsylvania law school.

  its purpose is to collect and preserve the scholarly output of penn law.

  http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/.

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  defender of truth

  Giordano an hour ago

  The issue of coercion was not brought up. Being shunned if you refuse to shun the person that was DA or DF. Especially close family members.

  Firstly, have you read the whole paper?

  That point was mentioned, even here in the few parts that I quoted in my second post:

  "Members of the Jehovah's Witness community are prohibited-under threat of their own disfellowship-from having any contact with disfellowshipped persons and may not even greet them." Paul v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc'y of N.Y., Inc., 819 F.2d 875, 876

  see also J. BERGMAN, JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES AND KINDRED GROUPS at xxiii "(1984) (discussing how dissenting Witnesses, who in 1938 voluntarily left the Society because of doctrinal differences, were "treated with indignation and animosity by their former brothers").

  Family members are required to shun other family members who are disfellowshipped.
  

  When families are involved however, or economic interests are at stake, a blanket refusal to recognize a cause of action for the former member goes too far the other way.

  The former member is effectively foreclosed from changing her beliefs or taking issue with church authorities...

  [because she is at risk of losing her family]

  The second difficulty in applying the Sherbert rationale to shunning cases, is that free exercise issues will almost always apply to both parties.

  For example, imagine that a woman has been a member of a religious group for ten years. During that time, she has married, had children, and built a business that depends largely on trade with members of the group. The woman becomes embroiled in a doctrinal dispute with the group, and the group expels her. According to the group's beliefs, all persons expelled must be shunned. Therefore, even though the woman's husband has great love for his wife, the group elders order him, on pain of expulsion, to cease all physical and emotional contact with her. The children are also instructed to shun their mother, and individual members of the group stop doing business with her. The marriage ends in divorce and the woman sues the group and the elders for alienation of her spouse's affection.
  

  As for 'not bringing up coercion', you have to read it carefully.

  This is all written from a legal perspective, remember, not an article about cult control.

  I was amazed by how much work went into this...

  Here are a few quotes, again taken from my above post, which is only a sample of a 32 page document.

  First, assuming that smaller religious sects are comprised mainly of converts from other, more "mainstream" sects, the threat of sanctions may persuade converts to remain faithful to their new sect after the first blush of inspiration wears off.

  This appears to have been the case with the Jehovah's Witnesses, who adopted the practice of "disfellowshipping" sometime during the middle part of this century-in apparent response to the group's rapid growth.

  The Mennonites and the Jehovah's Witnesses comprise relatively small, but cohesive, segments of their surrounding populations.

  The experiences of Robert Bear illustrate the strength of pressures to conform in the Mennonite church:

  "I should have known how submissive the church had [my wife] to do its bidding out of fear of losing 'unity' with the one 'pure' body, for her to turn so completely against a husband she had lived with for thirteen years." R. BEAR, supra note 5, at 38.
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  121

  No more printing of WT and Awake in my country.. Shit just got real

  by cognitivedizzy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  guys .

  a letter was just read in out kh stating that all printing of wt and awake is ceased for the coming year and we will just place tracts on fs, countries which were cared by our branch will be cared by other countries...along with this they read the new fs form and stuff about reporting links of videos wtf..lol.

  i can't tell which country perhaps that will give away a lot, any one with a similar information.

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  defender of truth

  I have two things I am wondering here..

  1) Is the organisation going to send some of that estimated 1 billion dollars from the Brooklyn HQ sale, in order to allow their brothers in India to keep distributing the magazines?

  Especially after they requested that some Witnesses in the USA move back to India, to preach there?

  “Everyone in the world will be taking a look at them,” said Tucker Reed, the president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a local development corporation. “The barrier to entry for a lot of those folks will be how high land values have gone. I’m sure they will fetch a very high sales price.”

  Mr. Reed estimated the value of the three properties being marketed as “somewhere between $850 million to $1 billion.”
  

  www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/realestate/jehovahs-witnesses-brooklyn-headquarters-for-sale.html?referer=&_r=0

  Indian elders, ministerial servants and regular pioneers are to be particularly encouraged “to consider whether their circumstances may allow them to return to India to assist with the preaching work.”
  

  http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/watchtower-urges-us-elders-to-ask-indian-nationals-to-consider-returning-to-india

  2) When are they going to update the page on their website?

  They should not be lying to the public. Once the website's statement is updated, we would have further evidence that this is true.

  Tours

  Monday to Friday8:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m.

  Duration 1.5 hours

  Highlights

  Translates Bible literature into 18 Indic languages.

  Prints publications in 24 Indic languages.

  Ships literature within India and to nine other countries.

  www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/offices/india/
  

  p.s. After writing that first question, I watched the India branch report from last year:

  http://tv.jw.org/#en/video/VODOurOrganization/pub-jwbrd_201510_4_VIDEO

  He stated that they can't receive funds from other countries, so they have to rely on local funding.

  Apparently, Jehovah was blessing the hard work of the Bethel brothers in 2015. (It was mentioned at the end that 377 brothers make up the 'Bethel family.)

  So unless he has removed his blessing, it should all turn out just fine(!)
  
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  69

  Could the Independent Inquiry in England and Wales expose jw.org's child abuse failures? And how can we help?

  by defender of truth in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  with all the talk about the org's policies and failures regarding child sexual abuse being publically exposed in australia, i thought that it may be a good time to highlight this... i apologise if this has already been discussed, but on the 9th of july the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in england and wales was opened.

  here is some information regarding it's aims.. "about the inquiry.

  the inquiry offers an unprecedented opportunity to examine the extent to which institutions and organisations in england and wales have taken seriously their responsibility to protect children.. the inquiry will investigate a wide range of institutions including:.

  1. 
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  defender of truth

  Just wanted to add these:

  www.aoadvocates.com/news/2016/2/16/kathleen-hallisey-featured-on-bbc-4-sunday-segment-on-jehovahs-witnesses
  

  www.jwvictims.org/2016/03/11/the-bbc-thinks-jehovahs-witnesses-have-some-explaining-to-do-when-it-comes-to-destroying-documents-relating-to-child-molestation/