Again, this only shows that you haven't bothered to read the petition, otherwise you wouldn't be making these claims. The breaches of the law are pointed there, and each article offended, and how, and the "hate speech" and "discriminatory instructions" are quoted there. If you don't bother to read the text of the petition, I certainly won't bother to discuss this with you.
OK, then it's clear that you do not understand what those terms mean.
This comes up a lot - people label WT articles as hate speech or discrimination but those terms, when used in law, are not the same as many think of them.
Sorry, but if any ex-JW is claiming that they have suffered torture at the hands of the WTS then they are an idiot.
It's actually pretty easy to prove. All it takes is their literature and their confidential letters. And testimonials, including mine and my family, notwithstanding many others that I can produce.
You say it's easy but I suspect you'll reach for some snippet of a WatchTower article from 1950 or something and think that they won't present a mountain of fine sounding quotes from many more recent ones.
Testimonials don't count for much because it will come down to "they told us that if we believe XYZ then we should do this and we did it". So you did it, not them, based on your beliefs
Threatening to disfellowship and shun someone if that person refuses to shun a disfellowshipped / disassociated person - I call that enforcing the policy against people's will. It's plain to see on the Shepherd the Flock of God elder's manual.
So? Our rules of membership are XYZ, you chose to belong and abide by those rules or you don't. But if you don't, you can't force others who do to stop abiding by them or the rules to change.
This would be a case that would break new ground.
So doing anything under UN type treaties or declarations will fail because if you bother to look at the documents for submitting a claim, much of them are about documenting how the legal cases haven't been handled satisfactorily. Higher courts dealing with high-level stuff don't deal with theory, they deal with case law and correcting lower courts decisions or coming up with new rulings to apply to clarify what the law means.
You need to prosecute a case first.
If one doesn't bother to challenge the "status quo", nothing will change. Watchtower used to hide behind the "confession privilege" to claim that elders weren't allowed to report to the authorities the complaints of child sex abuse that they became aware of. Until someone challenged that in court. And now the Watchtower cannot use that argument anymore. But someone had to challenge that status quo.
Yes, as I said, someone went to court. It starts there.
The Watchtower will have to stop hiding behind the "religious freedom" to spew hate speech and teach / enforce discrimination and social ostracization. It takes someone to challenge that status quo. If my angle doesn't work, so be it. Someone else will find another. And another. And another. Until the Watchtower cannot hide anymore and concedes to change via some "new light". Who cares. As long as it changes.
Because you are so fixated on changing things that you are not thinking about whether the change you want would be better or worse. You are only seeing the benefits to yourself and your own situation or experience, not how the changes you seek could be misused.
Realistically, that's the only real risk at stake here. That this isn't considered a priority; especially because it might strike a nerve with the RCC. Still, it's a risk worth taking.
No, it isn't, there are huge risks in pushing for ill-conceived laws that could be misused. You want to remove a significant personal freedom and change from being free to associate with who you want to to it being mandated association if someone else wants it. Hey, your still-in's want you back at the KH - you have to go, the law demands it. Have to attend your 5 meetings a week or else you'll be reported to the Minister of Forced Association.
You still haven't made one reasonable argument as to why isn't worth trying.
I think I have but I'm probably just as biased as you are so it's more for other people to decide. I'm explaining why the low number of signatures suggests that others have reasoned that it isn't worth trying.
Freedoms are important. Having them often means defending the rights of other people to behave in ways we don't like, even ways that may hurt us. But the tradeoff is that the hurt we suffer is usually just emotional and while we may think of that as 'torture' we're not being actually tortured as some are in countries that do not have our freedoms.
If anyone's family decides to put something else ahead of their relationships then as long as it is not under real duress they have that right. We have the same rights - it's why we can chose to associate with some family that we like and not with others that we don't. Shunning works both ways.
I have lost countless years of association with my family and it would be easy to blame the WTS for it but you know who's fault it was? My family's for going along with it! They made the choices and they don't get to excuse themselves of what they did by saying "someone told us to". I still wouldn't trade the freedoms I have because while it caused me some hurt, I think we have a choice of whether we let it define us and make us a victim or whether we see life for what it is - there are some people we are genetically closer to than others, but we can't control or dictate choices to anyone whether they are family or just friends. We can try to convince and reason with people but that is all - everyone has to be free to make their own choices and that will inevitably mean some people make really bad ones, that's the deal with freedom.