Longstanding Watchtower policy: "the receiver of a blood transfusion must be cut off from God's people by excommunication or disfellowshiping" --The Watchtower January 15, 1961, page 64 |
JW org. promises Human Rights
Commission to allow "free
choice"
& end penalties for
accepting blood
then hides this information
from their membership & the public
In a startling series of events . . .
(1) Last year the JW organization gave false testimony to the European Commission of Human Rightsdeclaring that "there are no religious sanctions for a Jehovah's Witness who chooses to accept blood transfusion." (See "Press communiqué" below.) [Actual sanctions: disfellowshipping]
(2) In a March 1998 settlement the organization agreed to give JWs "free choice in the matter for themselves and their children, without any control or sanction on the part of the association." (See pg. 1)
(3) The Watchtower's April 27 press release covered up the agreement, implying the settlement included concessions by the Bulgarian government but none by the JWs. (See next article..)
from official website http://www.dhcommhr.coe.fr/eng/28626CP.E.html Press communiqué issued by the
Secretary On 3 July 1997, the European Commission of Human
Rights (Council of Europe) The Government submit that children participate in
the association's |
THE LEGAL CASE began when the JW organization took the
government of Bulgaria before the European Commission of Human Rights over
alleged persecution. Bulgarian government officials argued that their actions
were justified because, among other things, the JW organization's policies
"endanger public health" because its teachings do "not have
respect for the human life as it requires to refuse blood transfusion even when
this would bring death." (See the Human Rights Commission's official July
1997 "Press
communiqué..." reproduced
above.)
On this
point the Jehovah's Witness leadership testified that refusal was not required:
"there are no religious sanctions for a Jehovah's Witness who chooses to
accept blood transfusion." (See July 1997
"Press
communiqué...".)
This
Watchtower testimony was an outright lie, because the longstanding policy is to
punish violators: "the receiver of a blood transfusion must be cut off
from God's people by excommunication or disfellowshiping."
(The Watchtower
January 15, 1961, page
64)
Apparently the
Human Rights Commission became aware of the organization's actual policy of
punishing JWs who receive blood, because the JW organization agreed to stop
doing that as part of the settlement of this case. Settlement was announced
during the March 2-13, 1998, session of the European Commission of Human Rights
(Council of Europe) at the Human Rights Building in Strasbourg.
The Commission's official press release (No. 148)
announced settlement of the caseKHRISTIANSKO SDRUZHENIE "SVIDETELI
NA IEHOVA" (CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES) v. Bulgaria
Application No. 28626/95 stating that the Bulgarian government had
agreed to certain concessions and the Witness organization "undertook with
regard to its stance on blood transfusions to draft a statement for inclusion
in its statute providing that members should have free choice in the matter for
themselves and their children, without any control or sanction on the part of
the
association."
Does
this settlement affect only a few Jehovah's Witnesses in the tiny country of
Bulgaria? No, the JW leadership's agreement to stop enforcing its ban on blood
will automatically affect Jehovah's Witnesses throughout Europe because the
European Commission of Human Rights is an agency of the Council of Europe, with
its decisions serving as legal precedent for member states: Albania, Andorra,
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,
Liechstenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine
and United Kingdom.
Mexico/Malawi double standard again?
What about the rest of the world? Will Jehovah's
Witnesses throughout the lands just listed "have free choice in the matter
for themselves and their children, without any control or sanction on the part
of the association," while members in North America and other lands must
continue to refuse blood under fear of disfellowshipping?
There have been
times in the past when the Watchtower Society enforced such discriminatory
policies. Former Governing Body member Raymond Franz documents such inequality
between Mexico and Malawi, where Mexican JWs were allowed to obtain and carry
the military service "Cartilla" while Malawian JWs had to endure
brutal mistreatment for refusal of a card required in that country. (See the
chapter titled "Double Standards" in the book
Crisis of Conscience
by Raymond Franz, Commentary Press, Atlanta, 1992 edition.) But the world was
unaware of the Mexican situation until Franz published his documentation. The
Bulgarian blood agreement was made, not in the Bulgarian language in an obscure
local courtroom in Eastern Europe, but before the multi-nation Council of
Europe in its international Human Rights Building in Strasbourg,
France -- with the official settlement published
worldwide.
It will
be impossible for the Watchtower Society to hide this decision from its 14
million adherents outside Bulgaria.
Why is Brooklyn trying to hide the agreement?
In mid-April the "The Associated Jehovah's Witnesses
for Reform on Blood Elders and Hospital Liaison Committee Members"
(http://www.visiworld.com/starter/newlight/)
picked up on the organization's 1997 perjury and began directing visitors to
the European Commission's website to see for themselves. Going there, I
discovered the official notice posted at
http://194.250.50.201/eng/E276INFO.148.html
summarizing the settlement agreed to by the JW officials and the Bulgarian
government.
On
April 20, I sent out an e-mail message to hundreds of ex-JWs, countercult
workers, and media newsrooms with the subject line: "WT OKAYS FREE CHOICE
ON BLOOD **NEWS**BULLETIN**." My e-mail quoted text from the Commission's
web page, and concluded by telling the recipients, "If the WT keeps its
promise to the European Commission, it must officially revoke these
instructions: 'the receiver of a blood transfusion must be cut off from God's
people by excommunication or
disfellowshiping....'"
The
next day ex-JW Jeffery Schwehm phoned the Watchtower Society's Brooklyn
headquarters and heard from an official spokesman that there continues to be
"no change." JWs who permit transfusions for themselves or their
children will still be disfellowshipped, worldwide:
Hi Gang- I could not resist it. So, I called the
Watchtower Society and asked them The operator transferred me to the Public
Affairs Office where the guy who He reiterated to me that accepting a Blood
Transfusion is a Jeff S. |
Copyright © 1998 by David A. Reed, all rights reserved. Clipart copyright © by Corel Corp., Metro Creative Graphics, Inc., Metro ImageBase, Inc., T/Maker, Zedcor, Inc., et al., used with permission.