So, this Italian guy claims he has a source in Australian law enforcement. And according to that source, Victoria Police (that investigated and prosecuted cardinal Pell) is investigating Watchtower and it will raid the Bethel - that is located in New South Wales - this Friday. How plausible is it?
Corney
JoinedPosts by Corney
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Criminal Investigation of Australian Bethel Underway?
by Room 215 inthe italian language ex-jw site testimoni di geova consapevoli published an article reporting that the aussie bethel is under investigation by the same team that brought down the catholic cardinal pell (currently in prison).
the site's editor, eliseo, occasionally posts here.. has anyone down under heard of this?
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Watchtower reveals some property stats - incomplete but interesting
by Corney ininteresting screenshots of internal wt databases appear in the 2018 coordinators' committee report video (that's in fact a presentation of their hub software) at 6:34-6:50. they contain, among others, the following information:.
there are 61,349 kingdom halls and 841 assembly halls;.
4,308 properties are held for sale, including 2,925 khs;.
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Corney
Nowhere does the Watchtower say that the screenshots of the HuB database is accurate or just a mock presentation, so there is no representation to say these are real figures.
Agree
The figure for USA is 8,196 congregations, 861,575 publishers 116,629 pioneers
The figure for Canada is 962 congregations, 84,831 publishers, 7,945 pioneers
There are 13,016 congregations in the US and 1,402 ones in Canada. I think the data you cited are incomplete. I guess only, say, English-speaking congregations are included in those numbers. How else to explain incredibly low numbers for Haiti (1 congregation and 48 publishers), Dominican Republic (7 and 351) and Puerto Rico (14 and 906)?
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Watchtower reveals some property stats - incomplete but interesting
by Corney ininteresting screenshots of internal wt databases appear in the 2018 coordinators' committee report video (that's in fact a presentation of their hub software) at 6:34-6:50. they contain, among others, the following information:.
there are 61,349 kingdom halls and 841 assembly halls;.
4,308 properties are held for sale, including 2,925 khs;.
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Corney
Interesting screenshots of internal WT databases appear in the 2018 Coordinators' Committee Report video (that's in fact a presentation of their HuB software) at 6:34-6:50. They contain, among others, the following information:
there are 61,349 Kingdom Halls and 841 Assembly Halls;
4,308 properties are held for sale, including 2,925 KHs;
1,473 properties have been sold in 2017 and 2018 service years;
784 KH property purchases and 1,130 new KH projects are in progress.
Two things need to be mentioned:
I found this info here;
of course, it should be taken with a grain of salt.
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Ted Jaracz - the Cardinal Ratzinger of Jehovah's Witnesses
by Dogpatch intheodore ("ted") jaracz1925-2010.
about 7:30, june 9, 2010, theodore ("ted") jaracz, one of the members of the governing body ruling over jehovah's witnesses, died.
previously, on may 19, 2009, he had had a serious stroke, but recently seemed to have made a big recovery, giving some assembly talks.
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Corney
“Additionally, upon information and belief, a known child molester was appointed to the Governing Body in 1974, and he controlled Watchtower Defendants’ database of molesters, policies toward their judicial cases, and non-reporting to authorities until his death in 2010”
information and belief
used in legal proceedings to qualify a statement and prevent a claim of perjury. A person making a statement based on information and belief often lacks personal knowledge as to the statement but has a belief that the information is correct. In effect, the person is saying, "I am only stating what I have been told, and I believe it."
That familiar formula ["information and belief"]… can mean as little as “on rumor”
I think it's unlikely the lawyers have any "physical documentation". What is interesting is whether the court will order discovery on these allegations (i.e., order Watchtower to produce the relevant documents in its possession).
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Will the U.S. Supreme Court be RIDICULED by JW lawyers?
by The Fall Guy inin view of the statements below by the wtbts hierarchy, how on earth can u.s. supreme court judges possibly be conned into accepting jw lawyers' claim/defence of clergy-penitent privilege in the $35m lawsuit?.
if you don't have a clergy, how can you have clergy-penitent privilege?
has no one in the u.s.a. pointed out to the judiciary that they're being duped?.
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Corney
The Fall Guy,
1) No, I did it correctly. Your claim that the SCOTUS can be "ridiculed", "duped" and "conned" by the WTS lacks any merits.
2) I'd describe their "no clergy class" rhetoric as misleading in respect of members of general public when the role of elders isn't properly mentioned.
3) Again, theological statements don't matter. Actual role and functions of a person do. It's possible that some laws in some jurisdictions treat publishers as clergymen because they actually conduct religious ministry (preaching etc.), not because of some dogma. But even if such laws exist, they aren't common.
4) What does "D.S." stand for?
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Will the U.S. Supreme Court be RIDICULED by JW lawyers?
by The Fall Guy inin view of the statements below by the wtbts hierarchy, how on earth can u.s. supreme court judges possibly be conned into accepting jw lawyers' claim/defence of clergy-penitent privilege in the $35m lawsuit?.
if you don't have a clergy, how can you have clergy-penitent privilege?
has no one in the u.s.a. pointed out to the judiciary that they're being duped?.
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Corney
U.S. Supreme Court judges ... the $35m lawsuit?
You didn't read the petition, did you?
Also, elders, COs, Bethelites and others are clergy as defined by law in many (if not all) US jurisdictions. And it doesn't matter what's written in Watchtower. Moreover, if the org's lawyers denied that elders and others are clergy merely because of those statements, it would be a frivolous argument.
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A Must Read Update on WBTS and Darkspilver from reddit
by ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara inmany of us know that watch tower (yes, two words in this case) has issued a subpoena to reddit to try to gain darkspilver's identity due to accusations of copyright infringement:.
tl;dr: on april 9, watch tower filed a response to the eff's motion to quash (filed march 26) regarding the subpoena submitted to reddit in an attempt to find /u/darkspilver's identity.. the wt response is publicly available here as a pdf, from the site court listener.. a number of other documents relating to the case are available on the same site, here.. and the eff's motion to quash is available on the eff's website here.. details: as i'm sure many of us know, watch tower (yes, two words in this case) has issued a subpoena to reddit to try to gain /u/darkspilver's identity due to accusations of copyright infringement.
specifically, watch tower is claiming copyright infringement for two things: first, darkspilver posted the back page of the november 2018 watchtower which was an article entitled "what gift can we give to jehovah?” which explained how to donate.
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Corney
Obviously, Watchtower wants to know WHO darkspilver is and is tossing some $$$ into the quest.
I think they spend money to prevent the establishment of unfavorable precedent. It isn't very important for them to obtain Darkspilver's identity.
Is this mystery guy a frontman
No. I guess like they merely needed a local lawyer to file the initial petition. AFAIK, he didn't appear at any hearing.
Does anyone know this guy?
No, but it appears like he obtained only one published (precedential) decision over his career - San Joaquin County Human Services Agency v. Marcus W., et al (the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction to order a 16-year-old minor with sickle cell anemia to undergo periodic blood transfusions).
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German branch stats: the number of KHs has decreased by 1/8 during the past 7 years
by Corney inaccording to its own statistics, the jw organization in germany had 1075 kingdom halls in august 2011, 997 khs in november 2016, and 940 ones in august 2018. .
the average decrease was 1.25 khs per month in 2011-2016 and 2.7 khs per month during the past two years.. .
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16znuhftwpwq1nf_9jidc_srarst0errjssgcuxkbl8a/edit?usp=sharing .
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Corney
Yes, last summer there were 940 KHs in Germany (according to the official site of the national JW organization).
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German branch stats: the number of KHs has decreased by 1/8 during the past 7 years
by Corney inaccording to its own statistics, the jw organization in germany had 1075 kingdom halls in august 2011, 997 khs in november 2016, and 940 ones in august 2018. .
the average decrease was 1.25 khs per month in 2011-2016 and 2.7 khs per month during the past two years.. .
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16znuhftwpwq1nf_9jidc_srarst0errjssgcuxkbl8a/edit?usp=sharing .
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Corney
Small update: According to the most recent publication by Jehovas Zeugen in Deutschland, K.d.ö.r., the number of Kingdom Halls in Germany has grown by 9 (+1%) during the last year.
Updated spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ZNUhfTwpwq1Nf_9JiDC_srarst0ErrJssGCuXkbL8A/edit?usp=sharing
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Elders accused of playing rape tape to victim, 15; case goes to Utah Sup. Court
by Corney ina woman is suing a local congregation ("kingdom hall of jehovah’s witnesses, roy, utah, an unincorporated association"), individual elders and watchtower ny after, she claims, a judicial committee forced her to listen an audio recording of her own rape.
the trial court summarized the facts as alleged by the plaintiff as follows:.
at the time of the judicial committee, plaintiff was fifteen years old.
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Corney
Well, it looks like the OP lacks some important details. Let's fix it.
The allegations as summarized by the appellate court:
¶2 Williams and her family attended the Roy Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.<1> In the summer of 2007, Williams met another Jehovah’s Witnesses congregant (“Church Member”). Williams and Church Member began seeing each other socially, but the relationship quickly changed and throughout the rest of the year Church Member physically and sexually assaulted Williams, who was a minor.
¶3 In early 2008 the Church began investigating Williams to determine whether she engaged in “porneia,” a serious sin defined by Jehovah’s Witnesses as “[u]nclean sexual conduct that is contrary to ‘normal’ behavior.” Porneia includes “sexual conduct between individuals who are not married to each other.” The Church convened a “judicial committee” to “determine if [Williams] had in fact engaged in porneia and if so, if was she sufficiently repentant for doing so.” A group of three elders (the Elders)<2> presided over the judicial committee. Williams voluntarily attended the judicial committee with her mother and step-father. The Elders questioned Williams for forty-five minutes regarding her sexual conduct with Church Member.<3>
¶4 After questioning Williams about her sexual conduct, the Elders played an audio recording of Church Member raping Williams. Church Member recorded this incident and gave it to the Elders during their investigation of Williams. The recording was “several hours” in length. Williams cried and protested as the Elders replayed the recording. The Elders played the recording for “four to five hours” stopping and starting it to ask Williams whether she consented to the sexual acts. During the meeting Williams was “crying and physically quivering.” Williams conceded she was able to leave but risked being disfellowshipped if she did.<4>
<1>. “Because this is an appeal from a motion to dismiss under rule 12(b)(6) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, we review only the facts alleged in the complaint.” Franco v. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2001 UT 25, ¶ 2, 21 P.3d 198 (quotation simplified).
<2>. Elders are leaders of local congregations and are responsible for the daily operations and governance of their congregations.
<3>. Williams alleged in her complaint that although church policy requires elders to conduct judicial committees to investigate claims of sexual abuse, the Church does not train them on how to interview children who are victims of sexual abuse.
<4>. Disfellowship is expulsion from the congregation. When someone is disfellowshipped, an announcement is made to the congregation that the member is no longer a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but no details are given regarding the nature of the perceived wrongdoing.