On 14 December 2023, the Court of First Instance of Alcorcón ruled that freedom of expression was protected for a group of “former followers” of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organisation, in terms of being able to describe it (insulting) as a destructive sect. And it condemns this religious organisation to pay the costs of the proceedings. Justice thus adds to the ignorant treatment that people who have not done well within a religious organisation arrogate to themselves the right to vilify and insult without the religious organisation, at least in some European countries and, in this specific case in Spain, having the right to defend its honour.
About the above photograph: “Exhibition on State Terrorism in Argentina at the Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos with photos of detainees – among them followers and baptised members of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Argentina – in the CCD-ESMA taken by the military. During the years of the Argentine dictatorship, Jehovah’s Witnesses were detained, tortured and, in many cases, disappeared because of their religious beliefs, their neutrality in political affairs, and their opposition to compulsory military service. This situation was also replicated in other South American countries under military dictatorships during the 1970s to 1980s.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses arrived in Spain at the end of the 1950s from the USA. The General Directorate of Security, linked to the National Catholicism of the time, began a persecution of all its members, accusing those who, because of their beliefs, refused to do military service of terrorism. Summary trials were held against them and they ended up in prison, something unthinkable today. Likewise, in the arrests that took place during the State of Exception decreed by Franco in January 1969 throughout Spain, Jehovah’s Witnesses were arrested in Valencia, accused of being (the men) all homosexuals. Something totally false, but necessary to put them in prison.
For years they continued to go through the ordeal of suffering in prison in our country, while they declared themselves conscientious objectors, until the Spanish democratic state decided to put an end to military service. However, there was never any talk of compensating those who had been imprisoned, some of them for years, because of their ideas. This was the beginning of another ordeal.
In the 1980s, it continued to appear, as a sectarian organisation, in all the lists that were published, where reference was made to “dangerous” groups and organisations. And so to this day, where the headlines are still as curious as they are striking: “The dark side of Jehovah’s Witnesses: young man tells of a harsh confession”. “Jehovah’s Witnesses. World, beliefs, behaviour”. “Historic ruling by a Spanish court: it is possible to call Jehovah’s Witnesses a ‘sect'”. “Victims of Jehovah’s Witnesses win in court the right to denounce their “total control” over the faithful”. Hundreds of headlines that only copy each other in a sort of repetition without contributing anything constructive.
In Spain, and in other European countries, Jehovah’s Witnesses are considered to be a deeply rooted religion, therefore, living in the 21st century, it is hard to understand the ignorance of societies as permissive as those in Europe, with secular and democratic governments that do not defend the right to free belief in a real way.
Other questions would be the crimes that each person commits and where justice will have to act, but not on the basis of the spite of people who have not been able to understand or integrate into a particular religious group.
What is a sect or cult?
Years ago, a sect was just a group of people who met to share an idea. Not forgetting that the Catholic Church in its beginnings was qualified as such, and even the Roman Empire qualified those first Christians as a destructive sect. As the group grew larger it became a religious movement and later a religion with all its contradictions.
The concept of destructive sect arises fundamentally when a religious movement prevailing in a region colonises the idea of God, turning its belief into an absolute truth and denigrating what others think.
On the other hand, and although I will skip over it now, we cannot speak of sects or terrorist or totalitarian beliefs and movements, which often emanating from consolidated religious beliefs, end up trying to impose their ideas by force of arms.
Do I know what the group I belong to is like?
Although I will go more deeply into the subject in subsequent articles, I would like to make it clear that the ideas of Jehovah’s Witnesses, or their beliefs, emanate from the Bible. A set of books shared by millions of Christians, Jews and Muslims. That it is a religion born in the late 19th century, apocalyptic in character and whose beliefs are similar to those of hundreds of different religious movements around the world. Therefore Jehovah’s Witnesses are, in terms of their beliefs, no different from other biblical traditionalist groups.
Take the example of the Amish, an exotic religious group that has not reached Europe, but whose customs are far more radical than those of Jehovah’s Witnesses. What would we say about them in this society where we are always looking at the speck in the other’s eye. The Amish have a strict code of conduct called Ordnung, which regulates all aspects of their daily lives; they see to it that all teenagers of an age are allowed to experience Rumspringa, a period of freedom where they go out into the world to experience it, before deciding whether or not to be baptised into their church and embrace their beliefs; they live under a strict patriarchy where men have the authority and women take care of the home and what goes with it, as well as the children; they dress simply and modestly, in dark, muted tones, without ornaments or buttons; they reject any kind of contact with modern energy, live without electricity, cars, mobile phones, etc. They often suffer from congenital diseases due to inbreeding and genetic isolation, and, among many other things, they often read the bible in Old German, a language they speak among themselves.
If a Western European decides to join such a group, he should take all this into account. And if he does so, he should do so on his own responsibility. Surely no European, not brought up in such religious structures, would end up in it. Are they a destructive sect? In the United States, nobody considers them as such. They abide by the laws of their community and the place where they live, they do not mix with the rest and have no idea of what is going on in the world.
Of course, not everyone is qualified to belong to this or similar groups, especially in a society as open and permissive as ours. Understanding that such permissiveness should not be understood as positive or negative, at least not in this discourse. It is clear that within Jehovah’s Witnesses there will be people who will consider throughout their lives that they do not need the control of the group, when the reality is that their personal experience, their belief has simply mutated. What happens then? Many people pretend that this change is accepted by the group when the group remains unchanged. When they are rejected, because they have changed their mind, it is the fault of the others. The group is immobile, backward, sectarian, and finally, when the family, friends, and the environment reject you, you feel hurt, and humiliated, starting the great psychological farce where everything useful to you some time ago is no longer useful to you. Everything you believed in is now old, apocalyptic, false. Perhaps you have evolved to a different way of thinking and therefore belong to a different religious movement.
In the end you end up questioning what you loved and joined a group of people who had their beliefs. If you look, you will see that they are still where you were a few months ago. Do you think you are better, with the right to insult the collective for not being there, because they have rejected you? You have evolved, but to where?
Jehovah’s Witnesses, like other groups, have their beliefs. We may like them more or less, but when one studies them, one knows exactly what they are. Therefore, when a person wishes to change from such a comfortable belief as Christianity, where permissiveness and passivity, together with rituals, do not have to be taken seriously, they should consider whether they are prepared to enter into another way of thinking that will force them to modify their actions, their behaviour or their way of relating to life and to others.
It is a pity that in Europe, in the 21st century, we still blame our own mistakes as believers on the collective, on the idea, on the group that remains cohesive.
And of course, in this first approach, I am not going to go into those brainy anthropological studies where they talk about pyramidal structures, leaders, etc., when the birth of any self-respecting religion fulfils those pyramidal requirements that seem to scare researchers so much. The reality is that what is happening in the world of sects today, and I am talking about organisations born within democratic and non-totalitarian parameters, is just noise, headlines and the unfortunate misinformation of some clueless jurist.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have the right to be among us without the need to be insulted and above all to be labelled as a “destructive sect”, if justice does not see it, it will have to look at it. Oh, and whoever is not ready to join a particular religion or contemporary religious movement, should find another hobby.
Originally published at LaDamadeElche.com
