Hi lifelong humanist and ... Justitia Themis
Nice to hear from you. We are all OK, and … about to leave … again for Malaga. Will be there next Sunday. Can’t stand this cold weather anymore here in Switzerland! Will tell you more about it.
I appreciated your comments on the subject I have opened.
I hope I am not misleading people with my post. So let me clarify again my position and my wishes and what I plan to do to attain my goals.
First of all, I do not pretend any single way of dealing with the subject to be the ONLY way, nor the BEST way. It is just another avenue open to some of us who have the opportunity and the means to pursue it.
The law in the US, as I understand also from Justitia Themis , is such that basically, any religious beliefs is acceptable, which, to me sounds horrendous, but this is just my feeling.
Luckily for us, in Europe, basically all countries have signed up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights drawn in 1948.
The Council of European has adhered to the “ Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ” opened for signatures in 1950 and entered into force in 1953.
47 European countries have signed up the convention between 1953 and 2006.
See: http://conventions.coe.int/Default.asp
Most of these European countries, but definitely all the 27 countries which are now part of the European Union not only have signed the convention but have included the basis fundamental rights referred to in their national Constitution.
In most of these 47 countries the Watchtower has a legal entity representing the Jehovah’s Witnesses, legally constituted recently or many years ago.
The question which may come to the mind of our US friends is, why then in spite of the clear protection of the law, a legal organism such as the Watchtower who violates these human rights, was able to constitute the legal entities representing the Jehovah’s Witnesses in so many countries?
The answer is, first of all, that the content and the essence of the individual Charter of these legal entities does NOT violate the law. Of course, it spells out clearly the admission and the exclusion procedures which we tend to equate to, respectively, the JW baptism and the Dissociation and Disfellowshipping. What violates the law, is not the actual provision for the exclusions, but the inseparable instructions to discriminate ex members, not the actual act of discriminating, but teaching it and imposing it mandatorily.
Anyone is free to hate his neighbor, no matter the reason: maybe because he is gay, or just of another race, or because he is Christian, jew or muslim, but no one has the right to teach hate and to impose hate. This is against the Constitution.
Unfortunately, when these Watchtower legal entities were established in the different European countries, their Charter did not spell out the hate and discrimination instructions, as these are kept away from any legal document, but widely taught in their publications, at their meetings and privately.
Had these hate instructions been included in the official legal Charter document, I bet that no European State would have ratified them.
This is why, in addition to any other initiative, which I do applaud, exposing this legal issue, at least here in Europe, with the different parliaments is key to their reconsidering the authorization to operate as a Watchtower legal entity in these countries.
We have started to do so in Italy, in particular because, in addition to the State recognition of the Moral (legal) Entity called Congregazione Cristiana dei Testimoni di Geova, in 1986, now this organism is pretending more privileges than just the ones they already have, in particular the right to collect 0.8% of the income taxes. The law proposal we have protested against on Dec 1 st has not been approved yet, this is why we continue our project of public opinion awakening and parliamentary lobbing, pointing at the law violations which have been occulted by the Watchtwoer at the time of their first request for recognition as a legal entity in 1986.
Sometimes, the JW pretend that they have received legal recognition in such and such European country, but very frequently, people do not know what they are talking about. For example, the Federal Republic of Germany, simply called Germany, is pointed at as being a country where the JW have been recognized legally. This is all but true. Only 12 of the 16 German States have recognized the WT as a legal entity, and now, one of the remaining 4 States, has rejected their request. This seems to become now a major issue for the WT since, the moment the rejection is recognized by the Court of Justice of that State, the other 12 States which have currently approved the legality, may have to reconsider their position.
Same with the Belgian exceptional case of a single individual suing the WT because it has induced discrimination by its members against him, violating the law. This court case may become one of the first ones to go to the European Court of Human Rights if it is not solved properly at the national level.
Based on all of the above, including the court case in Brazil we all know about by now, I was just wondering if the situation in the USA would open up to this type of considerations.
I understand the cases mentioned by Justitia Themis. By the way, it would be nice to have a link to a website that presents the details of the court cases. Thanks to provide it, if available.
But it is only if we continue to endeavor, investigate and debate the question from both sides of the Ocean that we may have a chance to build something upon it, instead of taking the stand some people like to take … “it has always been this way”, “we will never be able to change the system” .. and so on.
Nothing was ever done in one day, and it is not by sitting back and do nothing that we will see anything done in the future. We should not, neither, ask for the moon. Our expectations should be reasonable. No one is pretending here that we want to see the WT down the drain, even if deep inside some of us have this hidden desire. We simply would like to be treated like human beings, with our dignity not the way the Watchtower is instructing its members to treat, hate and segregate the ex members.
Who care if these treatment is pretendingly a biblical command. We are not here to discuss its merits and its legitimacy from a theocratic viewpoint but from a human, legal, civil rights view point.
I thank all of you who have been involved in such legal issues in one way or another, and wish we could continue to exchange information on the subject to learn from each other.
Roberto.
