Jehovah's Witnesses fight to avoid paying punitive French tax

The Watch Tower Society's reaction to the French government's punitive counter-cult taxation was swift and dramatic:

• A strongly-worded June 30 press release from Brooklyn headquarters announced intentions to appeal the tax in court.
  
  
• A July 1 open-air press conference was held at the Esplanade of Human Rights in Paris with JWs from 14 countries brought in to visit their nations' embassies with a request that they put pressure on France.
  
  
• The Society placed an $80,000.00 full-page ad in the Sunday July 5 New York Times featuring an open letter to French president Jacques Chirac signed by Governing Body member Lyman Swingle.
  
  
• Watch Tower officials contacted Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York, chairman of the joint Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the Helsinki Commission. This resulted in a July 15 CSCE press release announcing a July 22 briefing at the U.S. Capitol on "The Deterioration of European Religious Liberty" with Mr. James McCabe, Esquire, Associate General Counsel, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society as featured speaker.
  
  
• That briefing was followed by a July 23 press release from the Helsinki Commission announcing a July 30 joint hearing with the House International Relations Committee on "Continuing Religious Intolerance in Europe" with the ambassadors from France, Germany, Belgium, Russia and other European nations invited. "Mr. Philip Brumley, Counsel for Watchtower Bible and Tract Society" was listed as a panelist.

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