The rise and rise of Paul Gillies?

by JWB 48 Replies latest jw friends

  • freddo
    freddo

    I reckon Gillies may make "helper" but surely at 65ish - if he's just started partaking - he's missed the boat for GB?

    Has he a really "speshul" skill that they need?

  • Phizzy
    Phizzy

    The skill he has that they need is obfuscating language that obscures the truth.

    The G.B do not want truthful stuff to get out.

  • Nitty-Gritty
    Nitty-Gritty

    Sorry, this post is a year old.

    A poster here, mentioned Paul Gillies has begun partaking. Is there actual proof?

  • cofty
    cofty

    I would not be at all surprised. I heard he had been transferred from London to HQ. No doubt he is being lined up for GB membership.

  • sir82
    sir82

    I was thinking that he'd have to have a more "prominent" role on JW Broadcasting first....but they added Cook to the GB and he had never shown up on the broadcasts, and in fact didn't even show up after his appointment until maybe a year later.

    So it still might happen.

  • lastmanstanding
    lastmanstanding

    Paul is a hellava helper. He helped lots back during the UN affair.

    The following is a record of the published email correspondence between Stephen Bates (religion writer for The Guardian UK) and Paul Gillies (spokesman for The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Great Britian)

    Letter (email) from Paul Gillies to The Guardian (see original) (request to publish in The Guardian)

    Letters Editor

    The Guardian

    e-mail: [email protected]

    Dear Sir,

    October 22, 2001

    Stephen Bates' articles in The Guardian of October 8 and 15 substantially misrepresents the background to Jehovah's Witnesses registration with the United Nations and contains a number of factual errors.

    In 1991 one of our legal corporations registered with the United Nations as a NGO (non-governmental organization) for the sole purpose of getting access to the extensive library of the United Nations. This enabled a writer who received an identification card, to enter their library for research purposes and to obtain information that has been used in writing articles in our journals about the United Nations. There was nothing secret about it.

    At the time of the initial application no signature was required on the form. Years later, unbeknown to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, the United Nations published "Criteria for Association", stipulating that affiliated NGO's are required to support the goals of the United Nations.

    After learning of the situation, our membership as NGO was withdrawn and the ID card of the writer was returned.

    Sincerely, Paul Gillies

    Press Officer for Jehovah's Witnesses in Britain

    Published email correspondence between Stephen Bates and Paul Gillies 1

    Reply (email) from Stephen Bates to Paul Gillies (official letter)

    Subject: from Stephen Bates, the Guardian From: [email protected] Addr: [email protected] Sent: Mon 22/10/01 at 15:25:41

    Dear Mr Gillies,

    I have just been shown your letter, submitted for publication two weeks after my initial article appeared in the Guardian.

    I would be very grateful if you would allow me to circulate it to the thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses who have contacted me since the articles appeared because, if there was nothing secret about your association with the Scarlet-Colored Beast, I am surprised that so many followers did not know of it, given the WTBTS's frequent condemnation of the UN in its publications.

    This may account for the witnesses' feelings of betrayal and sense of hypocrisy over the whole affair. If it was not secret and was only done to obtain a library ticket, why did you not tell me when I spoke to you several days before the article appeared? Surely you would have known it or could have found out very easily - most press officers are able to do so.

    And why did the WTBTS decide to disaffiliate only two days after the article appeared, when the WTBTS "learned about a situation" which was anyway not secret? Any organisation which affiliates to another surely must know that it has to ascribe to its basic principles, so to pretend that acceptance of the UN charter's aims has been suddenly sprung on you is being disingenuous at best.

    As far as I can tell from your letter there are no factual inaccuracies in my reports for you have not pointed to any that you did not have the opportunity to explain to me when we

    spoke. I don't think the letter will be published. But then what would I know - I'm only bird seed in your demonology!

    Best wishes, Stephen Bates

    Paul Gillies responds to Stephen Bates comments on official letter.

    From "Paul Gillies" < [email protected]> Date> 25/10/2001

    Time>05:56:19 pm

    To: Stephen Bates/Guardian/GNL@GNL Subject: FW: from Stephen Bates, the Guardian

    Dear Mr. Bates,

    My apologies for the delay in responding to your letter as I am at present out of the

    country and relying on my email being forwarded. You stated in your second article on 15 October that thousands around the world had read your previous article within hours of publication. Obviously then, the best way to communicate my response is to publish my letter in The Guardian.

    I have supplied you with an honest answer, but I am sorry that you do not agree with it.

    Published email correspondence between Stephen Bates and Paul Gillies 2

    I do not give you permission to circulate my letter. Rather, if my letter is published the thousands who have written to you may judge its veracity for themselves.

    sincerely, Paul Gillies

    Final reply to Paul Gillies by Stephen Bates

    -----Original Message-----

    From: Forward Mail [mailto: [email protected]]

    Sent: 22 October 2001 07:26

    To: ' [email protected]'

    Subject: from Stephen Bates, the Guardian

    ---------------------- Forwarded by Stephen Bates/Guardian/GNL on 25/10/2001 11:02 am ---------- Stephen Bates

    25/10/2001 11:01 am

    To: "Paul Gillies" < [email protected]> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Mr Gillies

    Thank you for your response. The Guardian will not publish your letter because it appears to us to be untruthful, or possibly part of your sect's ludicrously-entitled "theocratic war strategy".

    As you must know if you have troubled to check the matter out, what you described as a library pass was in fact accreditation as an NGO to obtain access to the United Nations - that is what the WTBTS secured in 1992, after applying in 1991. If you have been informed otherwise by the WTBTS you have been misled and I expect you will want to make inquiries to discover why.

    In accordance with resolutions 1247 and 1248 of the United Nations, passed in 1968, some 23 years before the WTBTS applied, accredited organisations are required to subscribe to the aims and ideals of the UN charter, so this was not changed during the course of the WTBTS's membership as you erroneously stated.

    Furthermore, the accreditation was required to be renewed annually during the WTBTS's association, so it is inconceivable that your people in New York were not aware of what they were signing up to each year. To obtain re-accreditation someone at the WTBTS must have signed an application form each year and I would be grateful if you could let me know who that was. It appears that whoever did so may not have been informing the rest of the organisation what was going on, in applying to associate with what your literature with astonishing hyperbole described in 1997 as "a disgusting thing."

    In addition, your letter appears to be at a certain amount of variance with what your Portuguese colleague told a newspaper there, when a journalist followed up the story, that the NGO status was applied for to assist the WTBTS's humanitarian aid work in the Third World. Was it to do this or to apply much more mundanely for access to the library?

    I am sure you will understand that until these issues can be answered, the Guardian is unable to publish your letter because it seems to us to be misleading and not factually correct, indeed possibly "designed to misdirect the enemy" as your strategy has it.

    I note that you have so far been unable to point to any factual inaccuracies in my stories or to deny the veracity of the highly damaging statements from WTBTS publications that I quoted. I note en passant that you did not dissent from my reference to myself as bird seed and I can state that, contrary to the apparent assertions of some of your more ill-informed elders, I am neither an apostate nor an agent of the devil.

    You will however be reassured to note, I am sure, that, since my articles were widely read

    Published email correspondence between Stephen Bates and Paul Gillies 3

    on Jehovah's Witnesses' websites and message boards across the world, most of whose correspondents could not hope to see the copies of the Guardian newspaper in which they originally appeared, I have published your previous letter and my response to it, and will also publish this one, there.

    This is to enable witnesses and former witnesses - those most affected by and interested in the stories and best able to understand them - to assess their veracity and the caliber of your response. I must say that many hundreds of them in several countries including the US doubt your version of events. If your original letter was not intended for publication, I am not quite sure why you wrote it.

    Perhaps you might also like to explain the truly distasteful images of Armageddon, including the destruction of skyscrapers, that appear in Jehovah's Witnesses' literature, which would appear to undermine any public expressions of sympathy by the WTBTS over the events of 11 September.

    Yours sincerely, Stephen Bates

    (Note From hawk - Steve Bates & I noted he made a minor error but it was too late. He used Resolutions 1247 and 1248. He meant to say Resolutions 1296 and 1297 passed by ECOSOC Council in the UN in 1968.)

    Notes: What Paul Gillies didn't know, during this attempt to deceive both The Guardian and its readership, was that Stephen Bates was apparently receiving truthful information from other sources. Mr. Bates was doing research, contacting the United Nations and gathering facts and documentation from the U.N. -and also information from Watchtower publications, hence Mr. Bates comments about "theocratic warfare" and "birdseed".

    Stephen Bates had copies of official United Nations material, proving that what Mr. Gillies wrote in his official letter, was a fabrication. Mr. Gillies tried, unsuccessfully, to play down the Watchtower's connection with the U.N., relegating it to nothing more than a "library pass". But Mr. Bates knew from the UN documents in his possession that to be a registered "Non Governmental Organization" meant affiliation with the UN and acceptance of the UN charter, with all that goes with it, including the "signature" which Mr. Gillies lied about.

    Mr. Bates knew that the statement of Mr. Gillies that "no signature was required on the form" was a lie, as a signature was absolutely required, and not just in 1991 when the Watchtower first applied. In fact, the Watchtower's officer filled out and signed a form every year for ten years, and each time he had to give a signature.

    Mr. Gillies also asserted that things had changed "unbeknown to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses". He tried to deceive Mr. Bates and the editor of the Guardian into believing and publishing that "Years later, unbeknown to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, the United Nations published "Criteria for Association", stipulating that affiliated NGO's are required to support the

    Published email correspondence between Stephen Bates and Paul Gillies 4

    goals of the United Nations."

    Mr. Bates saw this for what it was, -a bold lie. He knew that the UN published its "Criteria for Association" in 1968, over 30 years ago by means of Resolutions 1296 and 1297 passed by ECOSOC council in 1968.)

    Nothing had changed, and Mr. Gillies knew it.

    After the last email exchange between Mr. Gillies and Mr. Bates, of October 25, 2001, the WTS made no further attempts to get the Guardian to print their fabricated story.

    Email exchange analyzed:

    Mr. Gillies attemped several different avenues at damage control. The first was to minimize the WTS involvement. Firstly, he stated "one of our legal corporations registered with the United Nations", thus relegating the deficiency to only "one" of the multitude of "organizations" at question. Here he attempted to place the problem among only a minority area of the WTS, as if one of many organizations was 'lost in the shuffle' as it were. The trouble with this subtle mechanism is that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is not just any "one" organization. Rather it is "the" organization itself, the mother organization.

    The second mechanism of deceit implemented by Mr. Gillies, was when he wrote that the affiliation was initiated for the "sole purpose of getting access to the extensive library of the United Nations". Here Mr. Gillies again attempted to play down the WTS's affiliation, yet this falsity was easily debunked by research through the UN. Although access to the UN library was granted to representatives from registered NGO's, anyone may access the UN library resources in a variety of ways, including the WWW online. As well, the Watchtower's involvement was not limited to library browsing as Mr. Gilllies asserted. A search on the UN website for evidence of the Watchtower's activity at the United Nations reveals quite a number of areas where the Watchtower was involved to a greater degree than they claim. The WTS, for instance, had sent representatives to make appeals at conferences where representatives from many other religions participated on an equal footing. This in itself shows Mr. Gillies words to be a deception.

    The third manufactured fabrication by Mr. Gillies was this statement concerning the Watchtower Society's UN affiliation. He wrote... "There was nothing secret about it." This statement needs no explanation, for anyone reading of this affair knows quite well where the truth is here. Did the reader know? Does the reader know anyone who was aware of it? Is there even one word about this affair in any Watchtower publication from the last ten years?

    Published email correspondence between Stephen Bates and Paul Gillies 5

    By way of making the WTS's UN affiliation appear to be almost accidental, Mr. Gillies again, attempting to minimize the affair, then went on to write "At the time of the initial application no signature was required on the form." This falsehood is easily debunked. UN materials show that it has always been necessary for an agent of the organization to sign a form in application for accreditation as an NGO. Also, the Watchtower's representatives needed to renew this unholy alliance yearly, and on the renewal form, a signature is most definitely required. Keeping in mind that the Watchtower was associated with the UN for ten years, this lie is likewise multiplied times ten!

    The biggest lie of course, is this one. "Years later, unbeknown to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, the United Nations published "Criteria for Association", stipulating that affiliated NGO's are required to support the goals of the United Nations.

    The United Nations has made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that resolutions 1296 and 1297, passed by ECOSOC council in the UN, chiseled these in stone in 1968. Were the Watchtower representatives aware of the "criteria" in the "Criteria for Association"? One of the requirements was that the Watchtower submit, each year, six pieces of their literature showing United Nations support. Not only did the Watchtower print favorable articles on the United Nations, the United Nations has responded with photocopies of the articles that the Watchtower supplied.

    Yes, the WTS, contrary to Paul Gillies lies, was quite aware of "Criteria for Association" and were meeting them by printing Awake articles favorable to UN objectives, and further, were submitting them to the UN as per the requirements which they were more than aware of. No, Mr. Gillies, the WTS's association was no accident "unbeknown to the Governing Body"!

    Published email correspondence between Stephen Bates and Paul Gillies


  • Nitty-Gritty
    Nitty-Gritty

    Thank you for all that information, but I was asking whether anyone has proof that Paul Gillis has begun partaking of the emblems.

  • lastmanstanding
    lastmanstanding

    He ought to, he’s a qualified lying sack of manure like the others.

  • Corney
    Corney

    In case someone is interested about it, Paul Gillies' official title is the director of the Office of Public Information of the World Headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses.

    slimboyfat Has anyone got video or audio of Paul Gillies?

    There will be a possibility to watch and hear him two months later, online or maybe even in person (in London).

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