Posts by Anders Andersen

15

Dutch State secretary reaction about abuse report and argumentation judge

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

reaction of state secretary and arguments of judge about report jw abuse in the netherlands.

minister dekker: report on jehovah's sketches "extremely worrying" picture

the report on the extent of sexual abuse within the community of jehovah's witnesses paints an extremely worrying picture.

Anders Andersen

I really find this difficult to express properly, in terms of, how on one hand the Dutch are one of most liberal societies in the world regarding sexuality, yet on the other are more strict at setting acceptable standards of right and wrong.

It's not even complicated. The keyword is "consent".
As long as all involved parties are fully informed, consenting adults, they can do whatever the hell they want when it comes to sex. Nobody else needs to interfere. That's your "liberal".

Of course, children cannot consent, and a skewed power balance (for example when a 16 y/o is 'in a relationship' with a 35 y/o) makes proper, fully informed consent impossible. That's your "strict".

Again, the keyword is informed consent.

5

My thoughts about Watchtower fully owned "independent" lawyer firm / Dutch case

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

friends,.

of course we have the vampire story, but this is what i'm thinking of now:.

in the current dutch jw.org law cases about child abuse and religion rights the jw.org is represented by shane brady, partner of w. glen how & associaties.

Anders Andersen

There may be something else to this: afaik in some (many?) jurisdictions discussions with in-house lawyers do not automatically fall under attorney-client privilege.

What better way to make sure your in-house lawyer can never be made to testify against you then making him an external firm on paper?

23

Watchtower hires Satanism author & Dracular society member Massimo Introvigne to defend them in Dutch CSA

by Diogenesister in

hi guys...well watchtower gets wackier and wackier!.

so watchtower has hired the author of several books on satanism & self proclaimed 'vampire' society member(!

) vlad...i mean massimo introvigne to defend them against a report by two academics recommending the dutch govt investigate jws.

Anders Andersen

The Wikipedia page on CESNUR makes clear that they happily defend all kinds of despicable cults, JW and Scientology being the least evil of them(!). They have defended several cults that committed mass murder and/or mass suicide.

One of the guys that now co-authored the 'expert opinion' in defense of Dutch JW also flew to Japan (all expenses paid) to defend the Aum Shinrikyo cult that killed 13 in the 1995 sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo metro. His 'expert opinion' then was that they could impossibly have done that, and they were being scapegoated. He later had to admit he was wrong after solid evidence showed that the cult did indeed perform those attacks.

Apparently these guys don't need much to go on to defend evil cults. As one reporter states: 'all the cults know they can count on CESNUR'.

What does that say about the worth of their (very much flawed) 'expert opinion' submitted to the Dutch government?

15

Dutch State secretary reaction about abuse report and argumentation judge

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

reaction of state secretary and arguments of judge about report jw abuse in the netherlands.

minister dekker: report on jehovah's sketches "extremely worrying" picture

the report on the extent of sexual abuse within the community of jehovah's witnesses paints an extremely worrying picture.

Anders Andersen

My 2 cents as a Dutchman:

Whenever newspapers use 'jehovas' JW do perceive it as hostile and disrespectful.

I'm not quite sure the media intend it that way too.

"Jehovah's Getuigen" is simply way too long for the limited space in newspaper (headings). Many people also really don't care about it. Do people and media in the US pr UK normally say 'Mormons' or 'Church of the Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ'?

It's not really intentionally hostile or offensive; it's just that people don't care enough about all those wacky religions that have strict preferences about how they want to be named.

Side note: The official spelling rules say proper spelling in Dutch is "Jehova", not the English "Jehovah". Many media use official spelling, much to the chagrin of the 'Jehovas'

8

Must read Dutch newspaper article about jw culture related to abuse

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

must read news paper article about jw culture.. jehovahs: "you do not bring a brother to justice" a parallel community with deviating values and norms, which conceals abuse cases as quickly as possible and where women are subordinate to men.

that picture emerges from a report on the jehovah's witnesses published on thursday.

bas soetenhorst january 23, 2020, 5:16 pm a gathering of tens of thousands of jehovah's witnesses in the rai in 1979. image anp with the jehovah's witnesses, the biblical principle is that you should not bring your brother to justice.

Anders Andersen

Gorby,

Do you have a link to the source?

10

Latest news from The Netherlands: Jehovah's want to stop publication of critical report on abuse

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

Anders Andersen

Update:

Today during the court session JW requested to have the case tried behind closed doors, without press or public. Otherwise (parts) of the report would become public regardless of the judge's verdict.

The judge agreed, which means that media and others (several victims, activists and exjw had shown up) had to leave the court room.

The case took 5 hours today, but the judge hasn't ruled yet. He will present his verdict tomorrow (Thursday) at 16:00 Dutch time (GMT +1).

So far many mainstream media have reported on the court case. A lot of attention has been generated. Many people assume JW are trying to cover up their flaws and are now curious about the report.

7

Interesting WT Deluge Contradiction I just noticed.

by Jofi_Wofo in

i was reviewing some of the evidence the wt proposes for their claim of the bible's scientific accuracy, when i came across this interesting assertion.. the mountains rise and fall, and today’s mountains were once under the ocean.

(psalm 104:6, 8) in contrast, several myths say that the mountains were created in their current form by the gods.. https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/science-and-the-bible/.

interesting.

Anders Andersen

Another one:

JW: "Evolution is false! Never happened!"

Also JW: "It has been estimated by some that the hundreds of thousands of species of animals today could be reduced to a comparatively few family “kinds”—the horse kind and the cow kind, to mention but two. The breeding boundaries according to “kind” established by Jehovah were not and could not be crossed. With this in mind some investigators have said that, had there been as few as 43 “kinds” of mammals, 74 “kinds” of birds, and 10 “kinds” of reptiles in the ark, they could have produced the variety of species known today. Others have been more liberal in estimating that 72 “kinds” of quadrupeds and less than 200 bird “kinds” were all that were required. That the great variety of animal life known today could have come from inbreeding within so few “kinds” following the Flood is proved by the endless variety of humankind—short, tall, fat, thin, with countless variations in the color of hair, eyes, and skin—all of whom sprang from the one family of Noah."

24

Oh How Far I've Come

by pale.emperor in

so this weekend my girlfriend and i will move into our own place together.

it turns out that “a cord of three strands is stronger” is bullshit and two people in a relationship are perfectly capable of being happy without outside influence.

what a journey i’ve had since leaving 3 and a half years ago!

Anders Andersen

Ow wow, congratulations!

13

Legal fight over door-to-door notes continues: case goes to Strasbourg

by Corney in

on 10 june 2019, the finnish jw organization lodged an application against finland with the european court of human rights.

the case was quickly - by the court's standards - communicated to the finnish government on 10 december 2019. the complaint itself isn't available online but there is a brief summary (see the link above) prepared by the court:.

the application concerns the jehovah’s witnesses’ religious activities in finland and their compatibility with the data protection regulations.

Anders Andersen

Well I views this is high stakes for the org. After all if the dubs can't note anything, how are they going to properly remember where the people with issues and the foreigners live? And if they don't know where those people love, how are they gonna exploit them?

Growth rates in Europe have been 0 to slightly negative for decades, but this would sure make the situation worse for the org.

With current situation JW have nothing to lose and everything to win by fighting the court's decision.

13

Legal fight over door-to-door notes continues: case goes to Strasbourg

by Corney in

on 10 june 2019, the finnish jw organization lodged an application against finland with the european court of human rights.

the case was quickly - by the court's standards - communicated to the finnish government on 10 december 2019. the complaint itself isn't available online but there is a brief summary (see the link above) prepared by the court:.

the application concerns the jehovah’s witnesses’ religious activities in finland and their compatibility with the data protection regulations.

Anders Andersen

It complains under Article 8 of the Convention that one’s name and address were data which was widely available in the public domain. Moreover, the notes made by the members of the community are protected against State interference under their right to privacy.

Yeah right, names and addresses are public domain data? Surely not.

And I hope JW don't try to pretend names and addresses are all they note? They write about people's religious beliefs, health issues, etc. All those fall in the highest class of sensitive data, and data collection may only be done under strict conditions.

Then JW claim people have freely offered the information to the JW publishers when talking to them. As far as I know that doesn't matter under GDPR; these people can't know that information will be stored, shared and used. People did not consent to their data being used in such ways. It would be different if JW publishers asked proper consent for storing and using the data, but I have never met a JW who does.

The most intriguing claim of JW is that their GDPR-violating notes are protected....under GDPR?!!?! So basically they say "the government can't interfere with us violating other people's privacy, because that would violate our privacy"...just wow....