Yeah, that "Information Packet" is a bunch of bunk. When have the elders ever been encouraged by Bethel to follow even their own "rules" if it's not to some selfish "advantage"?
They publish that "Global Information Packet" for public relations reasons. The reality in the congregations is completely different. The KHs I've been in always found loopholes to avoid following "the rules", either by "forgetting" to interview the witnesses in an abuse case, or by writing off the victim as too young/female/crazy/untheocratic/etc, or even by getting a police trespassing order to ban the victim before they had a chance to confront the perpetrator so the elders could say "the victim never did the first step in Matthew 18 of approaching the sinner, so we don't have to do the second step." Out of the elders own mouths I have heard these things. I've seen elders have judicial hearings where the chairman used his position to sit in judgment against the person who reported him and disfellowship the person for reviling and causing divisions when the person was telling the truth and warning the congregation about dangerous behaviors by elders. I've seen victims write/call/email Bethel, to many people at Bethel, to the legal department, the service department, the GB, without any response. And these things all within the past couple of years, since the so-called "new light" you mentioned. Those guys are liars.
It's not surprising. Their foundation is cracked. They are just following in Russell's footsteps. That guy hid abusive behavior from the beginning days of the WTBT$...
Pages 25-27 contains testimony from a court case where Maria described C. T. Russell's ways...
https://archive.org/details/SomeFactsAndMoreFactsAboutCharlesTazeRussell/page/n29/mode/2up
The WTBT$ has a history of twisting the truth. Here is C.T. Russell's own testimony from The Watchtower, 1972, 6/15, page 384
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1972449
"...and when she desired to come back I totally refused, except upon a promise that she should make reasonable acknowledgement of the wrong course she had been pursuing for a year, and give some assurance of being a friend and not an enemy."
So, this C.T. Russell was willing to disregard the Bible's counsel on marriage in order to cover his butt. Russell wanted Maria to lie. He wanted her to lie about his abuse problem in order to protect his image. He wouldn't let her come home unless she lied and said "oh, Charles didn't do anything wrong!" So he banished her. It's the same thing that happens today. It happened in congregations I've been in. It happens in a lot of congregations. They don't want people who bow to Jehovah; they want people who bow to the elders and who bow to the GB/FDS and bow to the WTBT$. It's sick. That's why these guys want to keep the disfellowshipping doctrine the way they do. It's not to keep the congregation clean. It's not to protect kids. It's to protect their interests. It's for their own sovereignty. Their sovereignty is about to come to an end. They are supposed to be serving as brothers, not kings. "...the land is unclean, and I will bring punishment on it for its error, and the land will vomit its inhabitants out..." 😵💫🤢🤮 Jehovah's going to show those religious fakers what it really means to be "dis-fellowshipped" from Jehovah Himself in a new sense of the word.
"I am going to vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, “I am rich and have acquired riches and do not need anything at all,” but you do not know that you are miserable and pitiful and poor and blind and naked..."
