A review of some of the older Watchtower Observer information. The 4 photobucket urls at the bottom of the post will be deleted in 24 hours.
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In accord with the "fair use" policies this information is being posted for research and educational purposes only. There were other related pages that also could have been scanned, however we felt this would be sufficient. Several people including Jehovah's Witnesses who are considered in good standing with their congregations, have asked members of this board as well as Randy Watters and myself if the Watchtower Society, or the elders in some of their own congregations would engage in "spying" on them. We felt the information listed below would answer their question. This information does not imply that all Watchtower officials or elders would engage in spying, but does show the extremes that "some" Watchtower officials have gone to in their attempts to find out information about their members and others not even associated. In our efforts to be fair to Jehovah's Witnesses and even to the Watchtower Society, we respectfully request that the moderators here would delete this information after a reasonable amount of time, as it is not being posted here to incite hatred, bias, or bitterness towards anyone. We have relatives that are Jehovah's Witnesses and we don't want them shown bitterness, we want them FREE! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Their magazine the Watchtower May 15th 1998 page 21, reports: "On Sept 26th, in a case from Greece, nine judges of the European courts of human rights, at Strasbourg, unanimously reaffirmed that Jehovah's witnesses come within the definition of known religions, entitled to enjoy freedom of thought, conscience, and belief, and the right to make known their faith"
What we are not told for example, the branch office of the witnesses in Athens, Greece totally abuses this right from its members. Staff from the HQ in Greece set up a video surveillance in a truck, spying on its members, to get evidence as to who, and when, they entertain, and visitors etc, and from this to confront them with the view to forcing them to give explanation of any they did not approve the company of, had association with, be it business, domestic, or social meetings.
Caught red handed the Watchtower staff were arrested by the police and "fined" for invasion of privacy resulting with much publicity in the newspaper. District Attorney Mr Kontaxis said: "this is very serious. . .to threaten and trample all that we call human rights" This incident and others can be read in former governing body member Ray Franz books "Crises of Conscience" and "In search of Christian freedom" (p.-379-382)
Shortly after this incident Jehovah's witnesses carried an article decrying the intolerance of JWs by the Greek Orthodox Church officials who opposed JWs holding a convention at a sports stadium. Above information can be found in paragraphs 3-6 here: http://www.bigwig.net/knots/nightmares/control.htm "Witnesses of Video" is what the front cover of the Athens newspaper displayed to the whole world! Page 1 of 4 http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e42/Expositor/Spy-1-sss0001.jpg Page 2 of 4 http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e42/Expositor/Spy-20001.jpg Page 3 of 4 http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e42/Expositor/Spy-3-d0001.jpg Page 4 of 4 http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e42/Expositor/Spy-40001.jpg
