-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: "E Bryant Holman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: May 13, 2007 9:45:41 AM PDT
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [cia-drugs] Re: [Activist_List] Jehovah's Witnesses Settle
Abuse Cases
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jehovah's Witnesses accused of
building 'paedophile paradise'
http://www.sundayherald.com/26260
By Torcuil Crichton
Sunday Herald
Scottish branch of world church alleged to have sheltered abusers
and kept information from police
The Jehovah's Witnesses Church in Scotland stands accused of
sheltering child abusers and keeping secret files of known
paedophiles within the organisation which it refuses to share with
police.
After a successful prosecution over child abuse within a Jehovah's
Witnesses family in Ayrshire, Scottish police are understood to be
preparing to bring a further case to court in the northeast.
The Jehovah's Witnesses church, which has six million members
around the world, has been convulsed by revelations that its elders
have protected sex offenders, failed to report accusations to the
police and even punished children and families making accusations.
The Watch Tower, the church's worldwide head quarters in Brooklyn,
is struggling to regain its battered authority after a string of
child abuse cases stretching from the US to Scotland. An
investigation by the BBC's Panorama programme has discovered that
the Watch Tower Society keeps a worldwide database of members
accused of child abuse. The list, which is claimed to contain more
than 20,000 names, is based on details held by each Jehovah's
Witnesses congregation and many of the names on that list have
never been reported to the police.
Allegations of child abuse within the church first emerged in
Scotland in the quiet seaside town of Stevenson in Ayrshire when 19-
year-old Alison Cousins went to the police after being branded a
liar by church elders to whom she had turned for help.
Cousins, who was brought up in the Jehovah's Witnesses, went to her
church elders three years ago with the shocking allegation that her
father, a respected member of the congregation, had been sexually
abusing her.
Cousins, who followed the strict church rules that any allegations
of wrongdoing must be dealt with within the congregation, broke
down as she told her story to the men who dispensed moral guidance
to the flock. In return she was told that she should do nothing.
'They told me that one of the scriptures in the Bible was that you
should never take your brother to court,' Cousins told Panorama.
'And I said to them, 'Well what are you meant to do then if he's
doing something wrong?' And they said, 'Come to us and we'll deal
with it.''
The church law which dictates that members must turn to elders
rather than the police also demands that there must be two
witnesses to a crime before taking any action. The biblical
citation for this is found in Deuteronomy 19:15: 'No single witness
should rise up against a man respecting any error or any sin. At
the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses the
matter should stand good.'
In instances of child abuse, where there are no witnesses other
than the child involved, critics of the church say the guide lines
amount to a 'paedophile paradise'.
Eventually, because she didn't have corroborating witness
statements for the elders, Cousins went to the police last year and
as their investigation began, she made a shocking discovery. Church
elders had known for three years that her father had been abusing
her older sister, that he had confessed to the church but that no
action had been taken.
Her father, Ian Cousins, who has since been prosecuted and
sentenced to five years in jail, had merely been reprimanded by the
elders and sent home where his abuse simply shifted from one sister
to the other.
The way Cousins's case was dealt with by the church is not an
isolated incident. The Jehovah's Witnesses are now reeling from a
series of scandals worldwide and allegations that its self-styled
Child Protection Policy does nothing but protect abusers and fails
to ensure allegations of abuse are reported to the authorities.
According to its critics, child abusers within the organisation are
protected by its strict biblical laws and the threat that any
member disregarding the advice of elders by going to the police
faces the prospect of being denounced and cast out of the
congregation.
The organisation insists that it has a strict child protection
policy and defends the database of self-confessed offenders as part
of its strategy of dealing with abuse without referring to the
judicial system.
The church keeps the existence of the list a closely guarded
secret. Watch Tower states that it uses the list to monitor the
activities of the men who stand accused of raping and molesting
children. But former members of the church claim that keeping the
list secret effectively shields abusers and allows abuse to
continue. In the American Bible belt of Kentucky, Bill Bowen, who
has spent his lifetime as a Jehovah's Witness and more than 20
years as an elder, claims the organisation covers up abuse by
keeping this database secret.
According to Bowen, who has become a thorn in the flesh of the
organisation, his sources inside Watch Tower indicate there are
23,720 abusers on the secret list -- who are protected by the system.
'Every detail is written down about what happened ,' said Bowen. '
If this man moves anywhere, then if any allegation surfaces again,
this is the way they monitor these people.'
The church in the UK and the US refuses to discuss the list or its
details with anyone not personally involved in a case. It was that
wall of anonymity that allowed Cousins's father to remain at home
and unchecked with his daughters at risk.
Bowen began his campaign to expose the church after having to
handle an abuse case in his own congregation and becoming disturbed
by the pressure it puts on the victim.
'When an allegation of abuse happens, parents are required to go to
the elders first,' said Bowen. ' If the abuser denies the charge,
they will turn back to the child and say, 'Do you have two eye
witnesses to what happened?' That means the child and one other
witness .'
According to Bowen, if there is not a basis to establish the
allegation with two witnesses, the pressure is then turned on the
accuser. If there is no corroborating evidence, the members making
the allegations are warned not to repeat them against an 'innocent'
or cause division in the church on pain of being 'disfellowshipped'
-- effective lifetime exile.
'They're told if they don't obey these elders that God will kill
them, and how God kills them is that when you're disfellowshipped,
you're viewed as being dead,' said Bowen. 'It's like the biblical
edict of stoning. Your own mother and father will not acknowledge
you in public. Your own children will not speak to you.
'And they have a choice, they can be silent and retain their family
and every friend they've known for the last 40 years, or, if they
speak out, they will lose all that overnight.'
The wall of silence around abuse cases and the stipulation that
there must be two witnesses before any action is taken has
prevented thousands of prosecutions, according to US police.
Jack Zeller, a US police officer who dealt with several child abuse
cases sees the irony. 'Unfortunately, most kids don't have several
witnesses observing them get raped,' he said.
The same levels of obstruction and unco-operativeness have been
encountered by police in the UK tackling allegations of child abuse
within the church. Police investigations into allegations of sexual
abuse within the Jehovah's Witnesses community in Birmingham were
frustrated for a long time by elders in the church.
Steve Colley, an investigating officer with West Midlands police,
was shocked by the determination of elders not to co-operate with
his inquiries into allegations of abuse in a Birmingham congregation.
'I was surprised,' said Colley. 'They actually said to me unless I
could provide two Jehovah's Witnesses who'd actually seen the
offence, then as far as they were concerned the offence hadn't
taken place.'
Despite this, each congregation keeps copious records regarding any
spiritual infraction or wrongdoing committed within the church.
Records of Ian Cousins's abuse of his eldest daughter were lodged
but were only obtained by Cousins under data protection
legislation. The papers show that the Jehovah's Witnesses in
Ayrshire and in the organisation's headquarters knew for three
years before she asked them for help that her father was a self-
confessed paedophile. Instead of enabling elders to monitor him,
the records showed they twice turned a blind eye to his abuse of
his daughters.
'It is a paedophile paradise created by Jehovah's Witnesses,' said
Bill Bowen.
'An abuser can go into any congregation, remain anonymous, have
access to more children through activities in the church, and all
he has to do is just keep denying it and he will have the
confidentiality clause in Watch Tower policy to enable him to
continue .'
----- Original Message -----
From: E Bryant Holman
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ;
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 9:23 AM
Subject: [Activist_List] Jehovah's Witnesses Settle Abuse Cases
Jehovah's Witnesses Settle Abuse Cases By Rose French - AP Writer
5/10/07 Nashville, Tenn. "A victims' rights group released
documents Thursday that showed the Jehovah's Witnesses recently
settled civil suits with 16 people who claimed they were sexually
abused by church elders or that church officials failed to act on
abuse allegations. The group, called silentlambs, held a news
conference in Nashville to demand that the denomination change its
policy for responding to sex abuse reports. Settlements were
reached in late February and early March, according to court
records obtained by silentlambs and posted to the group's Web site.
Fourteen of the cases were filed in California; the other two were
in Oregon and Texas.....There are about 1 million Jehovah's
Witnesses in the United States, and followers are known for
distributing Awake! and Watchtower magazines door-to-door. Bowen
also said Jehovah's Witnesses have a long-standing policy of not
reporting molesters to police. He claims that the denomination has
a secret database of accused abusers that they have not shared with
law enforcement officials. "They keep putting innocent kids and
unsuspecting families at risk of horrible crimes because they value
their secrecy and reputations more than they value children's
safety," Bowen said. Since establishing silentlambs in 2001, Bowen
says about 7,000 people who claim they were abused have contacted
his group." http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/nation/
wire/sns-ap-jehovahs-witnesses-sex-abuse,0,2802253.story
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