If this doesn't confirm the depravity of this organization, what does?
(These are not from the 1950's - but from 2004 / 2005 )
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gYFONdeWcsd88KgUQECmyIrLO9IqOdBC/view
berrygerry
JoinedPosts by berrygerry
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Disturbing Documents from the Montana Case
by berrygerry inif this doesn't confirm the depravity of this organization, what does?.
(these are not from the 1950's - but from 2004 / 2005 ).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gyfondewcsd88kguqecmyirlo9iqodbc/view.
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berrygerry
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More Info on the Montana Sex Abuse Decision
by berrygerry incourtesy of a redditor:.
https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-jehovah-s-witness-sex-abuse-case-underscores-church-s/article_fddc41e5-536b-5843-af30-200cc14892d8.html.
montana jehovah's witness sex abuse case underscores church's worldwide reckoning.
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berrygerry
Courtesy of a redditor:
Montana Jehovah's Witness sex abuse case underscores church's worldwide reckoning
THOMPSON FALLS — Perhaps the largest jury award ever to a single person claiming the Jehovah's Witnesses church failed to protect her from a sexual predator came Wednesday in Thompson Falls, a 1,300-person town peeking out from the pines along Highway 200 in northwest Montana.
The jury's award, $35 million in punitive and compensatory damages to one woman, is more than financial relief, the woman's attorneys say. It's a message to the church: If leadership won't amend their policies in handling child sex abuse, they're going to pay for it.
In 2012, a California jury awarded one woman $28 million for her own claims against the Witnesses. Her attorney said it was the largest jury verdict for a single victim in a religious abuse case in the entire country at that time. The payout is a direct reflection of the church’s enormous and — most importantly — centralized wealth at the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, located in Pennsylvania and New York.
The Montana case is the most recent in a global reckoning for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, not unlike the ones seen with the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America. The number of cases filed against the church has accelerated in local and federal courts across the United States, alleging that church leadership stifled child sexual abuse allegations and returned known predators to congregations without warning other Witnesses.
The Australian Royal Commission conducted its own probe into the church’s practices regarding the handling of abuse and known predators, finding more than 1,000 allegations were never turned over to authorities.
The bedrock policies revealed by these public proceedings come in two steps:
Reports of abuse are to be forwarded to the legal department in the church’s highest offices, which in turn direct congregation elders to conduct proceedings internally and not report these crimes to authorities.
The other part — the first part, technically — is what’s known as the “two-witness rule,” which requires an allegation of abuse to be bolstered by two witnesses before leadership takes any action.
Barbara Anderson, once a Jehovah’s Witness herself, said that rule is borrowed literally from the Scripture.
“They're literalists," she said, "and that's a very, very old command."
Anderson now lives in Tennessee, but she once lived in New York, where she wasn’t just a Witness, but a researcher in the church’s headquarters there. She told the Missoulian this week she left the church in 1997, after more than 40 years as a dedicated Witness, in protest of the policies that facilitate the cover-ups like the one in Thompson Falls.
And she’s been sharing the church’s internal documents online ever since, helping propel cases like this one toward justice.
In 2016, two women sued Watchtower and the Thompson Falls congregation alleging they were abused, molested and raped by member Maximo Reyes, both before the elders "disfellowshipped" him from the membership and after they reinstated him about a year later.
The first woman, Holly McGowan, said Reyes abused her for several years, when she was as young as 9, and reported it to church leadership in 1998. She alleged they did nothing because of the second-witness rule.
The Missoulian typically does not name victims of sexual assault. Both women named in this story agreed to allow the Missoulian to use their names.
There were only five exhibits entered during trial, but prosecutors really only needed four to prove the Thompson Falls elders knew Reyes had molested multiple children, including by Reyes’ own admission, in 2004.
After McGowan submitted a two-page letter on March 19, 2004, outlining Reyes’ assaults on her and another girl, the elders notified the high levels of the church and requested documents in order to officially sever Reyes from the congregation.
When the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a high-ranking church office in New York, issued the disfellowship papers and typed a letter to the Thompson Falls elders, they requested that the elders follow up with a letter containing more details: How long did the abuse go on? How old were the victims? Are members of the congregation aware of what took place?
“The community nor the authorities are aware of this matter,” the elders replied on April 21, 2004. “The members of the congregation are also at this time unaware of what took place. The only ones that we are aware of that know are Maximo, his wife and mother of the children. … The victims feel disgust toward Maximo.”
On June 16, 2005, the elders reinstated Reyes in the congregation at his request. Alexis Nunez, then an 8-year-old girl, would later tell the elders he sexually assaulted her on a near-weekly basis for the next two years.
Before the trial, attorneys for Watchtower requested Judge James Manley, the District Court judge for Sanders and Lake counties, order that a number of these exhibits remain confidential through the process.
They gave several reasons, including assertions the victim's attorneys wanted them so they could release them to the media and in turn “harass/embarass” the church.
Manley denied the request the seal the documents. The Missoulian obtained and paid for copies of them from the District Court clerk’s office.
Neil Smith, a Texas attorney who represented McGowan and Nunez, said litigating the case was difficult because he also had to bat away claims that certain documents were to be confidential because of religious protections.
"This is such an extremely secretive organization that refuses to provide honest answers," he said.
Attorneys for Watchtower did not return emails seeking comment for this story.
“This case was about exposing a system that protects the Jehovah’s Witness organization by keeping its victims quiet," said McGowan and Nunez in a statement emailed Friday night.
"We were taught at a young age not to talk to secular authorities and to trust the elders to handle any issues — even child abuse. That system took our voice away from us. This case was about getting our voice back and being heard. We feel like we accomplished that. However, we know one case won’t be enough to make the Jehovah’s Witnesses change their policies. We hope that other victims will hear our story and feel the strength to speak up and fight as well.”
Because the church said it had no documentation of McGowan’s 1998 report to the elders, the jury said in its verdict that the plaintiffs’ attorneys had not proved McGowan had made that report at all, and therefore couldn’t prove her allegations had been tossed aside.
Montana's mandatory reporter statute made a big difference in this case, attorneys said. Certain exceptions exist for clergy. For example, the revelation of abuse or neglect made during a confession or in a statement that's meant to be confidential can be withheld by clergy.
But Jim Molloy, a Bozeman attorney who joined Smith in representing the plaintiffs, said those loopholes couldn't apply here. Reyes admitted the abuse to the elders when they approached him about it, not in confession. What's more, they spread that information to others, including up the Witness chain to Watchtower.
"This is not a case where the Thompson Falls congregation went rogue," Smith said. "This isn't about them. It's the puppet masters in New York who issued orders by the threat of punishment from God."
The same policies and procedures have been aired out in proceedings against the Jehovah's Witnesses around the world. Yet the church remains set in its ways, Anderson said, because of how the religious leaders hold their beliefs above the law. Romans 13 in the Bible that says "Let every person be in subjection to the superior authorities, for there is no authority except by God."
"I left the organization over this issue," she said. "No one appointed them as magistrates, they're spiritual judges. If they want to judge someone on this matter, they'll take action against them in a religious sense."
Anderson herself was born Catholic but her family joined the Witnesses when she was 14. She married a Witness, and eventually found herself working as a researcher for the congregation's magazine, Awake!, and living in the Watchtower's home base, a 4,000-person complex once located in Brooklyn, New York.
While at the magazine, she learned about the church's process of internalizing matters of child abuse, and found leadership reluctant to publish anything notifying its members of the emerging numbers of accused.
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Naked JW's day in court
by Moster inthe latest from the 'tea' drinkers in canada.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/police-were-monsters-who-would-kill-them-details-emerge-in-alberta-naked-kidnapping/ar-aaab1wh?li=aaggfp5&ocid=calheader.
i can hear them chanting now.
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berrygerry
Front page of Edmonton newspaper
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Update on my life as a Jehovah’s Witness Teen after running away
by Letty inhey.
without them i felt...so...alone.
so i went back.
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Ireland
by berrygerry inhttps://www.businesspost.ie/news/concerns-grow-jehovahs-witnesses-irish-child-sex-abuse-files-421695.
concerns grow over jehovah’s witnesses irish child sex abuse files.
the sunday business post (ireland), sunday, july 22, 2018 - page 11. the jehovah’s witnesses have been urged to give the authorities potentially hundreds of documents related to child sex abuse in ireland over fears the organisation could be forced to delete them after a recent european court of justice ruling on the religion’s data-handling practices.. this month, the european court of justice ruled that the jehovah’s witnesses church was not exempt on any religious grounds from certain elements of the newly introduced gdpr data protection laws.. the jehovah's witnesses had argued that its practice of door-to-door preaching was covered by an exemption to the data protection law, but the court upheld an earlier decision by the finnish supreme court.. it now leaves the religion's irish and british headquarters - known at the watch tower - with a conundrum in relation to the potentially thousands of documents related to child abuse allegations in both countries, according to jason wynne, a former jehovah's witness who is now a campainger for awareness about instances of abuse within the religion.. wynne told the sunday business post that while the new law allows current and former jehovah's witnesses to request the deletion of files containing sensitive personal information, it could also "have a knock-on effect to their child abuse policies.".
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berrygerry
https://www.businesspost.ie/news/concerns-grow-jehovahs-witnesses-irish-child-sex-abuse-files-421695
Concerns grow over Jehovah’s Witnesses Irish child sex abuse files
The Sunday Business Post (Ireland), Sunday, July 22, 2018 - page 11
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been urged to give the authorities potentially hundreds of documents related to child sex abuse in Ireland over fears the organisation could be forced to delete them after a recent European Court of Justice ruling on the religion’s data-handling practices.
This month, the European Court of Justice ruled that the Jehovah’s Witnesses church was not exempt on any religious grounds from certain elements of the newly introduced GDPR data protection laws.
The Jehovah's Witnesses had argued that its practice of door-to-door preaching was covered by an exemption to the data protection law, but the court upheld an earlier decision by the Finnish supreme court.
It now leaves the religion's Irish and British headquarters - known at the Watch Tower - with a conundrum in relation to the potentially thousands of documents related to child abuse allegations in both countries, according to Jason Wynne, a former Jehovah's Witness who is now a campainger for awareness about instances of abuse within the religion.
Wynne told The Sunday Business Post that while the new law allows current and former Jehovah's Witnesses to request the deletion of files containing sensitive personal information, it could also "have a knock-on effect to their child abuse policies."
According to Wynne, the organisation currently retains data about child abusers and victimes as part of their own internal investigations into allegations of abuse.
These files may potentionally become material for Garda [police] investigations, and "if they delete the data because an alleged child abuser requests their data be deleted they [might inadvertently] commit a crime by deleting evidence of a possible crime, historic or recent."
Wynne has written to the Watch Tower's legal department asking them to hand over files related to alleged criminal activities to the appropriate authorities for further investigation.
Wynne's view is shared by Kathleen Hallisey, a solicitor at the London-based firm of Bolt Burdon Kemp, who is currently acting on behalf of 15 alleged victims in Britain.
"I was very concerned when GDPR was being introduced," Hallisey told The Sunday Business Post.
"We already know they have this database. We know it from the US from cases there and also from Australia from the Royal Commission.
"Watch Tower UK's child safeguarding policy covers Ireland so documentation related to allegations of sexual abuse in Ireland is likely to be held here in London," she said.
Hallisey pointed out that an ongoing child abuse inquiry in Britain has issued directions to religious institutions like the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Catholic Church and the Church of England ordering them not to destroy any documents related to ongoing inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse.
"I think the aim of GDPR was noble but I don't think the drafters took into account the kind of situations we're taling about."
Files related to a number of internal investigations carried out in Ireland - from child sexual abuse to domestic violence to 'disfellowshipping' members after perceived violations such as infidelity - are likely held both by the local congregation and by Watch Tower in London, according to Hallisey.
When asked by The Sunday Business Post what it intends to do with files related to child sexual abuse allegations - whether they are the sbject of police investigations or not - a spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses said: "The European Court of Justice has issued a judgment on what is a complex area of law. Jehovah's Witnesses will analyse the decision carefully and look as how governments within the European Union interpret that judgment."
The Jehovah's Witnesses religion has come under increasing critcism in Britain and Ireland for its handling of child abuse allegations.
Professor Geoffrey Shannon, Ireland's special rapporteur on child protection, told this newspaper n October last year that there was 'a growing concern internationally that within the hierarchy of the Jehovah's Witnesses, in some cases, there is a premium placed on the institution to the detriment of the welfare of children."
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Just a mosquito ? Netherlands
by berrygerry inhttps://www.trouw.nl/home/-dit-is-ons-geheim-als-je-je-mond-opendoet-zal-ik-je-wat-aandoen-~ab65b525/.
from reddit.
the first in a series of 8 articles / reclaimed voices / "this is our secret.
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berrygerry
"This is our secret. If you open your mouth, I'll do something to you. "
Marinde van der Breggen and Rianne Oosterom - 2:00, July 21, 2017
The way in which Jehovah's Witnesses deal with abuse cases is traumatic for victims, according to Trouw's research. Victim Marianne de Voogd was given lessons in the elder's tongues.
Marianne the Guardian is thirteen years old when the elder, for the first time, massages her two peas, as she calls her novice breasts. He also squeezes in when they are sitting together on the back bench of a Bible study of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Meppel, says Marianne, now 53. She must keep the Bible for it.
She looks at Elder Derk, one of the leaders of the Jehovah's congregation, startled. He looks back and does not stop. When she holds the Bible over her lap, he strokes her thigh with his fingertips, she says. The man of around fifty slowly goes up and touches her crotch. She holds her breath. Should she say anything?
Marianne only recently came to live in Meppel with her parents and two brothers. The house of 'Ome Derk' is the meeting place for young people from the local community. They can watch TV, chat and learn to garden. And Derk can make jam as the best. Because Marianne starts puberty and there is often a fight at home, his house becomes her refuge.
Peeing behind a tree
Marianne does not think much about her contact with Derk after what happened in the pew, she says. "I did not dare to say anything about it either. He was an important man in the municipality. "So Marianne plays in his garden and makes pots of jam. Okay, she finds it strange that he goes upstairs when she has to change clothes. Or that he wants to watch when she goes peeing behind a tree during a forest walk.
On a Sunday afternoon, Marianne and her brother Marcel go with Derk and his wife on 'field service' outside the city. They trudge from farm to farm to win souls for Jehovah, Marianne and Marcel remember. Halfway they split up and Marianne and Derk walk together to a farm with a long driveway. After a testimony to the farmer, they walk back past the bushes, says Marianne.
Derk asks if she is already on time, she recalls. "No," she says. Whether she knows what boys are going to do, he asks, according to her. "No," she says. Whether she already has a boyfriend or kissed. "No," she says again. "I still played hide and seek outside. When I was thirteen I had never been alone with a boy I liked, "she says.
Derk pulls her behind the bush and kisses her, says Marianne. "First on the lips. He explained that boys were going to do that with me, that I should like it. Then he put his tongue in my mouth and told me what to do with my tongue. He forced me to have five French kisses with him. I remember hoping somebody would see us. "
Her brother Marcel now remembers the strange atmosphere in the car back to the center of Meppel: Marianne quiet, Derk silent.
When Marianne is at home again at Derk, his wife and daughter go away for a moment. The other young people are already gone. Derk forces Marianne to caress the bulge in his pants, she says. Then she has to put her hand in his pants. She is saved by the bell - a church member comes to do a cup.
'This is our secret'
Marianne begins to puberty more severely. When there is a fight at home, her parents say: "Otherwise, go to Derk, you can do so well?" But Marianne prefers to avoid the house. On a weekday afternoon, she collects all courage and goes by. To say that it must stop. But Derk is not at home.
After that Marianne does not dare anymore. Derk also threatens her, she says. When he sits down to him, he says, according to Marianne, "This is our secret" and "If you tell this, nobody will believe you: I am an elder and very popular in the church" and "If you open your mouth, I will do something. "
She knows that all that caress is not good. It feels annoying as if something is not right. "But it also released feelings that were kind of tasty," she says. That is what makes her most embarrassed at that moment: she has to be aware of everything that has to do with sex before marriage, she has learned.
A few months later, when Marianne is once again with Derk, she sees how he makes a jam with her friends in the kitchen. She fills glass jars with her hips against the kitchen counter. He stands behind her and tries to stretch his arms under her arms to feel her breasts. "My mouth fell open, Derk saw me looking and stopped," says Marianne.
That night she stays with the same friend, who later marries her brother. The girls tell each other everything that night: Derk turns out not only to abuse Marianne, but also her girlfriend. Marianne's girlfriend decides to inform her mother. At that moment she is fourteen and Derk is abusing her for a year and a half.
The next day there are elders from the congregation on the sidewalk, who listen to her story. Marianne does not dare to tell everything, the elders are suspicious according to her. Her father tells them that a child of fourteen does not invent such details, she recalls.
Afraid to report
The elders who questioned Marianne must, according to the policies of the Jehovah's Witnesses, work on the matter. Because Jehovah's Witnesses do not like to use the world court, they have established their own rules for dealing with undesirable behavior. These are recorded in the elders' book, which is secret to ordinary believers.
The main rule when it comes to abuse: there must be two witnesses before a 'committee case' comes, the Jehovah equivalent of a lawsuit, in which the elders act as judges. Because both Marianne and her best friend Derk accuse of abuse, there are two witnesses.
Marianne's father has little faith in the elders and takes his daughter to the police station. But if he hears what kind of questions Marianne must answer - whether she has given Derk cause to commit to her by wearing seductive clothes, for example - he scribbles back. Afraid of filing a complaint, Marianne and her brother Marcel say.
In the elders' book, it says that Jehovah's witnesses cannot stop each other from going to the police, but also that the 'dish of the unbelievers' is not the best choice. In addition, whoever puts a person or the community in a negative light, can be accused of slander and be condemned internally. That is what Marianne's father is most afraid of, and fourteen-year-old Marianne is just as good.
Derk is called on the mat by the elders and confesses the abuse. He shows deep remorse. The elders follow the prescribed rules: if a perpetrator of sexual abuse confesses and regrets, he may not be expelled from the community of Jehovah.
He must offer his excuse and his privileges as the function of elder and the opportunity to speak in the meetings are denied him. Marianne: "From the stage, it was announced that Derk stopped as an elder, but not why." At Marianne that week a small note is on the mat. She has kept it all those years.
End of Part I
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Just a mosquito ? Netherlands
by berrygerry inhttps://www.trouw.nl/home/-dit-is-ons-geheim-als-je-je-mond-opendoet-zal-ik-je-wat-aandoen-~ab65b525/.
from reddit.
the first in a series of 8 articles / reclaimed voices / "this is our secret.
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berrygerry
From reddit
The first in a series of 8 articles / Reclaimed Voices / "This is our secret. If you open your mouth, I'll do something to you. "
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A concise list for my therapist...any suggestions?
by Straw Man inbeen a lurker here for a long time.
i am just now starting to deal with the issues from my witness upbringing.
it's been about 10 years since i was df'd.. just recently i started to see a therapist and i am trying to get across the depth of the effects of growing up a witness.
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berrygerry
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Cult-Code-Therapists-Therapist/dp/1546894683/
People who have been subjected to manipulation, isolation and thought control in cults and who work up the courage to leave, do so with many psychological and emotional wounds. Many of them seek out therapy to help recover from the damaging after-effects. Unfortunately, cult victims often report that therapists just do not seem to 'get' all that they endured in the cult, and all the challenges they face now out of the cult. In fact, many cult victims abandon therapy, feeling that their therapist just did not understand the the degree to which they had been controlled, repressed, exploited and abused. Many recount that they felt their experience seemed to be discounted as something they just needed to put behind them. Due to the advent of the Internet and the easy access to information it provides, more and more cult members are discovering just how much they have been deceived, coerced and abused. As they make their exit from high-control groups, extremist religions and cults, a whole new psychotherapy client population is looking for help to recover their emotional well-being, intellectual independence and ability to function in the world outside of the cult. Since most psychologists and psychotherapists do not receive much, if any, instruction about cult dynamics and the destructive effects of such intrusive dynamics on cult members, therapists may be ill-equipped to truly understand and help this unique and growing client population. With this book, Bonnie Zieman, a former cult member, a recently retired psychotherapist, and the author of four other books on recovery from high-control abuse, provides a useful reference tool for therapists who need to inform themselves about cult abuse and its aftermath. This one-of-a-kind book offers a summary outline of typical cult controls and the probable resulting effects on those subjected to them. Therapists can use this book as a primer to bring themselves up to speed on the topic - until such time as they decide if they want to take more formal training in order to help former cult members reclaim their authentic self and rebuild a self-directed life.
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Canadian Donations
by Lost in the fog ini stumbled upon this charitable status page for canada and thought that i would look for the watchtower society of canada.
as they say the report is incomplete because it lacks the normal auditors process details.
but donations received $64.4 canadian dollars!
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