Jehovah's Witnesses News

Stepan Levitsky and his wife are preparing to participate in the special distribution. In 1957, he was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment for possessing a single issue of The Watchtower.

For Immediate Release
February 25, 2010

RUSSIA—On February 26-28, 2010, throughout Russia, from the Chukchi Peninsula in the east to Kaliningrad in the west, a special campaign is taking place. For these three days, tens of thousands of Russian Jehovah’s Witnesses are offering their fellow citizens a tract entitled Could It Happen Again? A Question for the Citizens of Russia. Twelve million tracts will be distributed.

Why did they decide to address this particular question? The Chairman of the Presiding Committee of the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, Vasily Kalin, said: “Sixty years ago in the Soviet Union, Jehovah’s Witnesses experienced an unprecedented wave of persecution and repression. Lately, a new wave, a systematic campaign of harassment is being carried out against Jehovah’s Witnesses; this time, some want to classify our literature and activity as extremist. Our meetings for worship are raided; worshippers are illegally detained, questioned, and searched. Their personal possessions are confiscated. In view of the seriousness of this situation, we, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, consider it necessary to provide our fellow citizens, not excluding government officials, with accurate information about ourselves, as well as about cases of the religious intolerance that we have encountered.” Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 24%

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service

Just weeks after Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed their literature as extremist, Jehovah’s Witnesses are encountering at least ten times the level of state harassment across the country as before the ban, their press secretary has estimated to Forum 18 News Service. Since 8 December, they have catalogued over 30 incidents, including searches, threats and brief detentions. So alarmed are the Jehovah’s Witnesses by the growing similarity of their predicament with their repression during the Soviet period that their entire 160,000-strong Russian membership will today (26 February) begin distributing 12 million copies of “Is History Repeating Itself?”, a leaflet refuting the religious extremism allegations against them. In December, Russia’s Human Rights Ombudsman informed President Dmitry Medvedev of an upsurge in citizens’ complaints about religious freedom violations, but his only response was to check if they came from “non-traditional” confessions. Mikhail Odintsov of the Ombudsman’s Office declined to answer Forum 18’s questions. Readers of the late Turkish Muslim theologian Said Nursi – whose works are also banned – similarly note increased state scrutiny, with raids by the police and FSB security service on dozens of homes in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan and Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk in the past two months. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 18%

By LISA BEISEL

The chairs inside the new Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Crownsville seem to go on for miles.

Or at least the length of a football field.

Church members from around the area and some from out of state will get to see those 1,902 seats and other impressive amenities at the hall’s dedication, which will happen in two separate ceremonies Saturday.

The previous building was torn down about 18 months ago to make way for the new, larger facility, which caretaker John Showalter likes to describe as “half the size of Noah’s ark.”

It seems as if at least two of every animal, and then some, would fit in the 44,863-square-foot building, which is 25 percent larger than what the congregation had before. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 48%

Merging the Baptist and Saint Mary’s hospitals means more than changing their names to Mercy Medical Centers. The consolidation could affect what goes into decisions regarding your care, and your power to deny yourself certain treatments.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) — Joseph Nassar’s faith has driven his decision to draft a Living Will.

“As a Jehovah’s Witness, because of the blood issue,” he says. “We don’t accept blood transfusions.”

He believes it will spare his caregivers, and his family, heartache and guesswork.

“It’s a legal document,” he says. “Whether it’s a Catholic hospital or Baptist hospital or any hospital, they should comply with it.”

Tennessee’s Right to Natural Death Act presumes that every rational adult has a ” fundamental and inherent right to die with as much dignity as circumstances permit” , including the right to accept, refuse, withdraw from or otherwise control your treatment. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 41%

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have forsaken Brooklyn Heights as their headquarters, and will move to a compound upstate, it was reported this week.

The business arm of the religious group, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, is planning to vacate 25 and 30 Columbia Heights, two mammoth buildings that remain occupied, for now.

“We have submitted a proposal to the Town of Warwick to build a complex there that we’re calling the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Richard Devine told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle this week. “We have started the land use process there.”

Devine, the group’s real estate manager, said that the new property would hold 850 people and would be environmentally conscious. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 35%

For Immediate Release
February 23, 2010

MOSCOW—A building in northern Moscow that has been used some 15 years for peaceful weekly services of Jehovah’s Witnesses has unexpectedly become a center of controversy. One local official claims that years ago the Witnesses purchased that property after it was illegally privatized and that they are now depriving war veterans use of it, even though it is located in a protected zone of historical value. In response, Jehovah’s Witnesses offer proof that the allegation is false because by court confirmation the land and building in question are located outside the protected area and both were legally purchased long after having been privatized. Additionally, the building involved is not registered as a historical monument. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 19%

For Immediate Release
February 22, 2010

GOMEL, Belarus—“I try to be faithful to the Bible in every aspect of my life and follow the teachings it contains. For me, this includes believing that a person should not be trained for or participate in warfare,” stated Dmitry Smyk, who is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. According to the Belarus Constitution, all citizens have the right to choose alternative civilian service or military service.

Despite this Constitutional right, on the November 6, 2009, the Tsentralniy District Court of the city of Gomel, fined Smyk the sum of 3,500,000 rubles (approximately $1,295) for refusing military duty because of his religious convictions. On December 9, 2009, the Gomel Regional Court upheld this decision, and on January 22, 2010, the Chairman of the Gomel District Court affirmed the lower court’s decision. Smyk’s reaction was: “It appears that on paper I have the right to alternative civilian service, but in reality I cannot exercise it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 21%

For Immediate Release
February 22, 2010

ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan—Lyudmila Nikolskaya, a 55-year-old mother and pensioner, was granted amnesty by court decision on November 13, 2009. Mrs. Nikolskaya had been charged on October 16, 2009, by the city prosecutor for “illegal” religious teaching.

Three other Jehovah’s Witnesses remain in prison for sentences of up to four years for allegedly organizing “illegal religious activity” and have been excluded from amnesty considerations. In granting the one amnesty, the court took into consideration that Nikolskaya had not been previously convicted and her actions were not gross violations. The court applied the amnesty pardon based on the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers, dated August 28, 2009. The basis for the decree was the eighteenth anniversary of Uzbekistan’s independence. In granting the amnesty, the court exempted Nikolskaya from the punishment and any limitations imposed on her during the investigation. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 25%

By Laura Ungar
Five years ago, Valicia Starks felt her teenage daughter’s grip grow weak as she succumbed to sickle cell disease. Now she clutches the hand of her dying 23-year-old son.

He wastes away beneath crumpled covers with his belly distended and oxygen tubes snaking from his nose. Across from his bed hangs a shadow box containing dried roses from his sister’s casket.

His parents and nurses expect him to die within months of the same inherited blood disease that killed his younger sister, Dominique, at 17.

University of Louisville scientists are working to cure the disorder, but their research comes too late for the Starks family of Shively, whose story reveals the heartbreaking toll of a disease that kills and disables African Americans by the thousands and currently affects more than 1,700 people in Kentucky and Indiana. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 32%

By Thomas H. Maugh II

Findings contradict recommendations against using blood from women for transfusions because of a potentially life-threatening antibody reaction.

Three years after the U.S. blood-banking industry recommended against transfusing plasma from female donors because of a potentially life-threatening antibody reaction, researchers have found that plasma from women may actually be better, not worse, for heart surgery patients.

In a study of patients treated before the new guidelines were implemented, those receiving plasma from women were only half as likely to suffer lung complications from the surgery and were 45% less likely to be hospitalized or die in the 10 days after surgery, a Duke University Medical Center team reported.

The long-term survival rates, however, were the same whether plasma came from men or women. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 21%