Displaying items by tag: Jehovah’s Witnesses

A court in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia has sentenced a Jehovah’s Witness (JW) follower to seven years in prison on charges of ‘extremism’. Yevgeny Bushev had been under house arrest for over a year on allegations of continuing ‘the illegal activities of a banned religious organisation’. In 2017 the Supreme Court declared the JW movement to be extremist, banning its estimated 400 branches across the country. Bushev is the 15th JW follower from the region to be prosecuted. The prosecution’s witness was an employee of the National Guard (Rosgvardia) who had ‘shown interest in the Bible’: a linguistic examination concluded that Bushev had ‘tempted’ him to accept the JW faith when responding to questions about religion. International human rights NGOs have condemned Russia’s crackdown on JW followers in the years since the ban, and in June 2022 the European Court of Human Rights said that Russia had violated over 1,400 followers' right to religious freedom.

Children who have been abused by Jehovah's Witnesses were told not to report it by Elders. Men and women from across the UK said they were routinely abused but the religion's rules protected perpetrators. A child abuse lawyer believes there could be thousands of victims who have not come forward because of the ‘two witness’ rule. But there is rarely a witness to the crime of rape. The organisation said it did not shield abusers. Louise Palmer, waived her right to anonymity. Louise was born into the organisation along with her brother Richard, who started raping her when she was four. She told her parents and elders in the congregation. ‘I asked, 'what should I do? Will you report it to the police, or do I tell them?’ They strongly advised me not to go to the police because it would bring reproach on Jehovah.’