Οι Μάρτυρες του Ιεχωβά και οι κυβερνήσεις
Από τη Βικιπαίδεια, την ελεύθερη εγκυκλοπαίδεια
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Οι Μάρτυρες του Ιεχωβά έχουν αντιμετωπίσει στο παρελθόν και συνεχίζουν να αντιμετωπίζουν νομική ή κυβερνητική εναντίωση σε πολλές χώρες.
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[Επεξεργασία] Κίνητρα
Οι Λόγοι που χρησιμοποιούνται από τους αντιπάλους των μαρτύρων του Ιεχωβά για να δικαιολογήσουν κυβερνητική δράση εναντίον των Μαρτύρων, είτε ως ομάδα είτε ως μεμονωμένα άτομα, τείνουν να είναι, γενικά μιλώντας, οι εξής:
- "Μάρτυρες του Ιεχωβά δεν είναι καλοί πολίτες"
- Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to run for political office and are advised against participating in elections. In democratic countries, these activities are seen as the Citizen's right and, also, the Citizen's duty. In some countries, the same is applied to the refusal to salute the national flag.
- Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to defend their country by force, and to serve in the military. In countries threatened by foreign powers, or engaged in a war with them, critics contend that such refusal is a form of treason, or as a hypocritical way of having one's way of life defended by others. Nowadays, however, most democratic countries recognize the right for citizens to be conscientious objectors.
- Yet, the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses explicitly require that they are law-abiding except where their beliefs are in direct conflict with governmental regulations such as those cited here. Thus, they contend, they try to be model citizens; they learn to be tax-paying, active and involved members of their community. [1] (Also Awake! 9/8/1999)
- "Οι Μάρτυρες του Ιεχωβά μεγαλώνουν τα παιδιά τους ακατάλληλα"
- Jehovah's Witnesses live in relatively close-knit communities; their Church advises them against partaking in social activities outside of the Church. This is seen as isolation from society, and criticized as an improper environment to raise children.
- Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions under any circumstance. Although adverse consequences of this prohibition are lessening, due to advances in medicine and alternatives to blood, critics contend that the Witness stance on blood is "risky", and even a criminal behavior in the case of parents refusing transfusions to their children in danger of death.
[Επεξεργασία] Ενέργειες σε δημοκρατικές χώρες
[Επεξεργασία] Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες
In the United States, many Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses have shaped First Amendment law. Significant cases affirmed rights such as these:
- Right to Refrain from Compulsory Flag Salute - West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette
- Conscientious objection to military service
- Preaching in public (proselytizing)
By 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court had reviewed 71 cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses as an organization, two-thirds of which were decided in their favor. Most recently, in 2002, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society disputed an ordinance in Stratton, Ohio that required a permit in order to preach from door-to-door. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Witnesses.
[Επεξεργασία] Ελλάδα
To Ευρωπαικό Δικαστήριο Ανθρωπίνων Δικαιωμάτων υπερασπίστηκε το δικαιώματα των Μαρτύρων του Ιεχωβά σε πολλές περιπτώσεις. Για παράδειγμα :
- Efstratiou v. Greece (18 December 1996), Strasbourg 77/1996/696/888 (Eur. Ct. H.R.)
- Manoussakis and Others v. Greece (26 September 1996), Strasbourg 59/1995/565/651 (Eur. Ct. H.R.)
- Kokkinakis v. Greece (25 May 1993), Strasbourg 3/1992/348/421 (Eur. Ct. H.R.)
[Επεξεργασία] Αυστρία
- Hoffmann v. Austria (23 June 1993), Strasbourg 15/1992/360/434 (Eur. Ct. H.R.)
[Επεξεργασία] Γαλλία
In France, a number of court cases have involved Jehovah Witnesses and their organizations, especially on the question of their refusing blood transfusions to minor patients. These questions had far-reaching legal implications regarding the tax status of their organizations.
[Επεξεργασία] Περιπτώσεις που σχετίζονται συγκεκριμένα με την στάση των Μαρτύρων σχετικά με τις μεταγγίσεις αίματος
The French population generally considers that refusing blood transfusions on grounds of religious beliefs is excessive and that refusing them for minor children is abusive and even criminal, and this is reflected in the attitude of the government and the legal system.
The Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah, a not-for-profit religious association used by Jehovah's Witnesses in France, was denied tax-exempt status for certain taxes by the French tax authorities. Religion-supporting organizations (associations cultuelles) in France can ask to be exempted from a number of taxes, including taxes on donations, as long as their purpose is solely to organize religious worship and they do not infringe on public order. The reasons for this denial were stated:
- The association of Jehovah's Witnesses forbids its members to defend the nation, to take part in public life, to give blood transfusions to their minor children and that the parliamentary commission on cults has listed them as a cult which can disturb public order. [2]
The list alluded to as final argument is given in the report (unofficial translation) from a 1996 Parliamentary Commission on Cults; [3] however, reports such as this carry no legal or regulatory force.
On October 5, 2004, the Court of Cassation, which is the highest court in France for cases outside of administrative law, made public a decision in the case of Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah v. Direction des Services Fiscaux which rejected the Witnesses' recourse against taxation at 60 percent of the value of some of their contributions, which the fiscal services assimilated to a legal category of donations close to that of inheritance and subject to the same taxes between non-parents (text of the ruling, in legal French). The amount involved in the controversy could exceed $28 million (U.S.). According to Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society representatives, this includes a 60% tax on contributions used to support a vast humanitarian relief effort to Rwanda in 1994. [4] Roughly speaking French law makes a clear distinction between normal non-profit associations (which are not tax-exempt for the above category of donations), non-profit associations of public usefulness (whose donations are tax exempt; this is the legal form normally used for associations engaging in humanitarian aid), and associations supporting religious activities (whose donations are tax exempt). Humanitarian aid is not considered support of religious activities and thus, accordingly, is not considered to be tax-exempt under the rules governing associations supporting religious activities; the usual solution is to found a separate association devoted to humanitarian aid, which will operate under the tax rules pertaining to associations devoted to humanitarian aid; it may then be possible to have it declared of public usefulness. To summarize the ruling, the fiscal services could legally tax the associations of the Witnesses if they received donations in the form of dons gratuits and they were not recognized as associations cultuelles.
However, the Conseil d'État, the supreme court for administrative matters, ruled that denying the statute of association cultuelle on grounds of accusations of infringement of public order was illegal unless substantiated by actual proofs of that infringement. For instance, a legal reason for this denial could be that the association incited to felonies such as failing to assist a person in danger; but mere considerations that the doctrine of the association could lead to such incitations were insufficient (court case; translation).
Other court cases have concerned the right for a patient, or of a minor patient's legal guardians, to refuse medical treatment even in case of lethal consequences should the treatment not be accepted. For instance, in a 2001 court case, doctors at a French public hospital that had given blood products to a patient with an acute renal insufficiency, in clear danger of death, were found not to have committed a mistake of a nature to involve the responsibility of the State (communiqué, English translation). The commentary of the Council, however, was that there does not exist, for the doctor, an abstract and unalterable hierarchy between the obligation to treat the patient, and that to respect the will of the patient; that is, doctors, when faced with the question of whether to treat a patient against his will, do not have a legally predefined obligation to treat the patient, nor do they have a legally predefined obligation to abide by his or her wishes.
[Επεξεργασία] Άλλες περιπτώσεις
In a child custody case following a divorce, a woman (Mrs Séraphine Palau-Martinez) was denied the custody of her children outside of holidays for various motives, among which her belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses; the court of appeals of Nîmes considered that the educational rules applied by the Witnesses to their children were essentially criticable because of their hardness, their intolerance, and the obligation for children to practice prozelytism. The case went before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) (request #64927/01), which ruled that the court, in that respect, should have based itself on actual facts regarding the mother's handling of her children and not on abstract, general notions pertaining to the mother's religious affiliation.
Some Witnesses requested the cancellation of the recognition of public usefulness of the association UNADFI (National Union of the Associations for the Defense of Families and Individuals), a group whose objectives include fighting sectarian excesses, and which, the plaintiffs alleged, persecuted the Jehovah's Witnesses. Both the Conseil d'État and the ECHR rejected their claim.
[Επεξεργασία] Διώξεις από χώρες με έλλειμα δημοκρατίας
In some undemocratic regimes, the refusal to salute the flag and to participate in military operation was viewed as treason of one's country. Nazi Germany sent German and Austrian Jehovah's Witnesses who refused allegiance to the Nazi state and military service to concentration camps. Βλέπε Οι Μάρτυρες του Ιεχωβά και το Ολοκαύτωμα.
