Article source: Forum 18, By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service
Four lawyers defending Jehovah’s Witnesses have been deported since March, Forum 18 News Service has learned. The deportations of the two American and two Canadian lawyers seriously hinder the Witnesses’ attempts to defend themselves in seven local court cases seeking to ban their literature as extremist.
The deportations of four lawyers since March strike at the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ already pressed defence against attempts to ban their literature as extremist, one of those deported, Mario Moreno, has told Forum 18 News Service. …

Article source: Radio Free Europe
Authorities in the ethnic Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh region are refusing to allow Jehovah’s Witnesses and another nontraditional religious group from legally operating in the self-proclaimed republic, RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reports.
A new law adopted by the Karabakh parliament obligated all religious denominations to reregister with a government department on religious affairs within a six-month period.

In a recent case, the Canadian Supreme Court upheld the decision of doctors who performed a blood transfusion against the wishes of a young Jehovah’s Witness girl. The blood transfusion almost certainly saved her life, yet the teenager likened it to rape.  The court further suggested that a child’s maturity should be taken into consideration but that by no means meant that a child should be allowed to make a decision that might endanger his or her life.

In the midst of news articles featuring the many summer conventions of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I thought that the Atlanta Journal presented a much more honest picture as opposed to the usual “sunshine and lollipops” coverage. The article doesn’t simply focus on the size of the convention but discusses the program, highlighting the emphasis on the Jehovah’s Witnesses as an apocalyptic religion. What do you think about this year’s convention theme? Is it the same old thing or do you think the doomsday rhetoric is intensifying?

The following is an article by WPTV (May 30, 2009) outlining the Watchtower’s “The End is Near” campaign. Seemingly capitalizing on the current state of the world’s economy, the 2009 convention series looks like it’s targeting folks who are finding themselves down and out, hopeless and in dispair.  With all due respect, I can’t help but read this and feel like the Witnesses are upping their quota of “crazy talk”.  I’m not one to poke fun at the witnesses and in truth I feel compassion and pity for the spokesperson …

A ‘Witness’ to the future as Watchtower buys land upstate
Original Article at: The Brooklyn Paper
By Evan Gardner
“First came the sell-off, next comes the big move.
After five years of selling off hundreds of millions of dollars in real-estate holdings in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have finally bought something big: 248 acres upstate.
The Promised Land (for Witnesses, at least) has a name: Ramapo, NY.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are planning to build a new Kingdom hall in Cooloola Cove (Australia).  They have removed all the trees from a lot which concerns residents over the potential now for flooding in their homes and properties. Residents were also upset that the trees were cut down during nesting season, as the trees were home to many birds.
Residents were required to pay a relaxation fee in order to build a single house on a 1 acre lot. They suspect that the Jehovah’s Witnesses had to pay a substantial sum in …

Parent fury at anti-Christmas talk in school
Dec 15 2008 by Ben Turner, Liverpool Echo
Republished from: www.liverpoolecho.co.uk
A SCHOOL has come under fire for allowing Jehovah’s Witnesses to tell pupils why they choose not to celebrate Christmas. But today leaders at Kirkby’s Westvale primary said the talk was just part of its commitment to promote tolerance among all faiths, which is clearly stated to parents in its official brochure.
The row surrounds a 30-minute religious education lesson at the Melverley Road school.On Wednesday, parents were invited in to discuss why they were …

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have settled nine lawsuits alleging church policies protected men who sexually abused children for many years.
Republished from NBC News www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21917798/
By Lisa Myers and Richard Greenberg, NBC News Investigative Unit
Frederick McLean is one of the most-wanted fugitives in the United States, charged with 17 counts of child sexual abuse in California.  Law enforcement sources say that when a victim’s family confronted McLean in 2004, he allegedly confessed.  But before he could be arrested, McLean fled.
Authorities identified at least eight victims that McLean allegedly abused over the course of …

Japan Today
Friday, February 29, 2008
“TOKYO — A joint panel of Japan’s five medical societies on Thursday said that children under 15 who require blood transfusions should be given them, even if this means going against the wishes of their parents, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, who object to such treatment on account of their religious beliefs.

Releasing guidelines on the issue in a press conference, the panel headed by Fukushima Medical University professor Hitoshi Oto said children under 15 should be socially protected, drawing a line at the age from which a …