Do Jehovah's Witnesses Have Freedom of Religion?

Of course, it depends on the country. Jehovah's Witnesses have successfully defended their religious liberties through litigation in many countries such as the United States. (See Supreme Court Cases Involving Jehovah's Witnesses.) In other countries, they face persecution and limits on their religious freedoms.

Jehovah's Witnesses have prided themselves on advancing religious freedoms. They should be given some credit for doing this. However, the focus of their activism has been to advance their liberties as an organisation. The story is quite different when it comes to the personal liberties and religious freedoms of its members.

There is a troubling contradiction here. It can be demonstrated by considering this standard of religious freedom as stated in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief". Article 20 says, "No one may be compelled to belong to an association."

Unfortunately, the organisation of Jehovah's Witnesses doesn't respect these basic human liberties. They compel their members to stay within their association by imposing a nearly intolerable cost for resigning their membership. The penalty for leaving is enforced shunning by family and former friends. This causes many to stay in the organisation, despite their earnest desire to leave. These people don't have true freedom of religion.

Even resigning, with knowledge of the consequences, can be a difficult challenge. I have sent a letter of resignation and several follow up letters (some by certified mail) and I have not yet received a response. I don't know if they have honored my request to be removed from their membership lists. They claim that membership in their religion is voluntary, but their callous refusal to respond to letters of resignation would indicate that this isn't really the case.

Their attitude is highly hypocritical. They petition governments to protect their religious liberties as an organisation, but refuse to extend even the most basic courtesies in allowing their members to exercise their own personal religious rights.

If you would like more information, please see this discussion I started at Jehovah's Witness.net.

A Good Article About Shunning Among Jehovah's Witnesses

The Bible Research blog has a good article about shunning as practiced by Jehovah's Witnesses, written by someone who has experience with shunning and being shunned. It discusses the consequences of shunning and why it works as a control technique.

Here is a heartbreaking excerpt, "When I was associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses I remember once a disfellowshipped woman with small children had attended a Thursday night Kingdom Hall meeting that ended about 9:45 PM. She was required to sit in the back and she could not speak to or be spoken to by anyone there. When we left the meeting this disfellowshipped woman was still there after 10:00 PM deep in a residential neighborhood with small children and a broken down car. We all did our duty to the Watchtower and shunned her. We did not offer to help her. I never saw her again."

Perhaps it should be pointed out that the leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses eventually said its OK to provide emergency assistance to disfellowshipped people in need. Still, there is a great reluctance to risk breaking the rules by having any contact with disfellowshipped ones. It's hard to believe that anyone would repress their natural human compassion to this extent in favor of organisation rules, but such is the result of the fear and mind control in the Jehovah's Witness organisation.