https://jwfiles.com/ News and primary-source research on the Watchtower organization en-us https://jwfiles.com/article/echr-italy-intesa-jehovahs-witnesses-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/echr-italy-intesa-jehovahs-witnesses-2026/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:51:03 +0000 Italy's decades-long failure to approve a formal State agreement (an 'intesa') kept Jehovah's Witnesses out of a system that lets taxpayers send part of their income tax to a religion, the European Court of Human Rights held in June (application no. 49687/16), awarding EUR 18,000. The ruling is still not final: as of 7 October 2026, the Court's database shows a pending request for the case to go to its top bench of 17 judges, the Grand Chamber. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/ontario-court-of-appeal-gutierrez-watchtower-class-action-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/ontario-court-of-appeal-gutierrez-watchtower-class-action-2026/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 07:26:37 +0000 In Gutierrez v. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Canada, a unanimous three-judge panel ruled on 23 September 2026 that the proposed class action disclosed no valid legal claim against the Society, holding that spiritual authority alone is not enough to create a legal duty of care, and upheld the finding that a class action was not the preferable procedure. It left in place the unchallenged finding that the unnamed Canada Branch was a necessary party. The court did not rule on whether any abuse occurred. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/japan-jehovahs-witnesses-sue-state-religious-abuse-guidelines-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/japan-jehovahs-witnesses-sue-state-religious-abuse-guidelines-2026/ Wed, 23 Sep 2026 07:25:59 +0000 The suit in the Tokyo District Court, filed in March 2025 and reported by Jiji Press in April 2026, argues that a health-ministry Q&A listing a parent's refusal of a blood transfusion a doctor judges necessary as neglect is unconstitutional, and asks for the guidelines to be set aside, with ¥2 million in damages per person. The state was contesting the claims, according to April 2026 reports; three advocacy groups for people raised in religious households criticised the suit. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-allows-storing-own-blood/ https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-allows-storing-own-blood/ Thu, 18 Jun 2026 23:56:14 +0000 A Governing Body update made the storage and reinfusion of a patient's own blood a matter of personal conscience — one more move in an 80-year doctrine that keeps shifting in one direction. Updated 19 September 2026: six months later the Governing Body extended the same principle to the four primary components of another person's blood; whole-blood transfusions remain prohibited. Doctrine https://jwfiles.com/article/okinawa-prefectural-hospitals-transfusion-suit-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/okinawa-prefectural-hospitals-transfusion-suit-2026/ Fri, 04 Sep 2026 12:17:11 +0000 Five Jehovah's Witnesses say two prefectural hospitals refused to treat them unless they signed a blood-transfusion consent form, and are suing Okinawa Prefecture for about ¥16.74 million. Ryukyu Shimpo reported on 17 September 2026 that at the first hearing at the Naha District Court the prefecture asked for the claims to be rejected. The allegations are unproven. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/governing-body-blood-components-conscience-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/governing-body-blood-components-conscience-2026/ Sat, 19 Sep 2026 07:49:46 +0000 A “Questions From Readers” article released on 18 September 2026 leaves the use of red cells, white cells, plasma and platelets taken from another person — and the decision to donate blood so components or fractions can be made from it — to each member's conscience, and says the congregation “will not get involved in that decision.” Transfusions of whole blood, and donating blood for one, remain prohibited. It is the second change to the blood doctrine this year. Doctrine https://jwfiles.com/article/ukraine-rivne-clergy-mobilisation-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/ukraine-rivne-clergy-mobilisation-2026/ Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:53:57 +0000 The Eighth Appellate Administrative Court in Lviv dismissed the appeal on 3 September 2026, leaving a Rivne judgment of 16 February 2026 in place. Both judgments record, as a fact no party disputed, that an official inspection found recruitment-centre officials in breach of the Commander-in-Chief's order of 16 December 2024 barring the detention and forced delivery of clergy of registered religious organisations. Neither court treated that as a reason to cancel the call-up, the unit posting or the cadet appointment, and neither returns to the finding after listing it. Police delivered the claimant on 22 April 2025; medical board, summons, call-up order and unit posting all followed within 48 hours. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/thompson-zoller-watchtower-trafficking-suit-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/thompson-zoller-watchtower-trafficking-suit-2026/ Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:09:23 +0000 Meleah Thompson says she was abused as a child by men connected to her Oregon congregation in the early 1990s and that elders, told of it, invoked the two-witness rule and expelled her instead. Her suit, filed 20 July 2026, argues that the sexual acts she says she was coerced into were 'services' under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and that Watchtower knowingly benefited from concealing them. A judge refused on 12 August to waive her $405 filing fee, ruling on her finances without reaching the claims themselves; the fee was paid on 19 August, so the case continues. The allegations are unproven. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/ukraine-mobilisation-verdicts-cluster-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/ukraine-mobilisation-verdicts-cluster-2026/ Sat, 12 Sep 2026 08:21:30 +0000 Five men who refused a mobilisation call-up each drew three years, four of them suspended. The two the army had already taken in drew five years, neither suspended — one a man posted as a cook in a supply section, who told the Stryi court he had applied for alternative service in 2022. All are trial-court verdicts, and only one is recorded as having taken legal effect. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/ukraine-eighth-appellate-jehovahs-witnesses-mobilisation-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/ukraine-eighth-appellate-jehovahs-witnesses-mobilisation-2026/ Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:58:43 +0000 On 19 August 2026 the Eighth Appellate Administrative Court in Lviv dismissed a Jehovah's Witness ministerial servant's challenge to his mobilisation call-up, holding that the statutory grounds for deferment are an exhaustive list he did not fall within — while finding, and not acting on, the recruitment centre's failure to decide his application at all. Three months earlier the same court quashed another Witness's call-up order, not on religious grounds but because a recruitment centre had exceeded its powers. And in April, in a judgment that is final and unappealable, a Kyiv panel held that Ukraine's alternative-service law is not clearly confined to peacetime conscription, absent any statutory restriction on that service — the proposition both Lviv panels treated as settled. No Supreme Court ruling reconciling them was found in the judgment-register searches this article describes. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/ukraine-supreme-court-jehovahs-witness-mobilisation-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/ukraine-supreme-court-jehovahs-witness-mobilisation-2026/ Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:53:18 +0000 In a final ruling of 19 August 2026, a panel of the Cassation Criminal Court upheld the conviction of a baptised Witness deacon under Article 336 for refusing a call-up notice, then released him from serving his three-year term on two years' probation. The precedent it applied — that belief is no answer to a mobilisation charge — is one two Supreme Court judges dissented from, that panels of the court tried three times to reopen, and whose underlying statutes four constitutional complaints were challenging as of the Court's notice of 6 May 2026. The same precedent holds that call-up during mobilisation does not cancel an objector's right to refuse to carry or use a weapon. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/brazil-stf-blood-transfusion-adpf-618-642-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/brazil-stf-blood-transfusion-adpf-618-642-2026/ Wed, 02 Sep 2026 08:01:21 +0000 On 28 August 2026 the STF's president, Edson Fachin, put ADPF 618 and ADPF 642 on the plenary calendar for 30 September. The merits judgment opened in a virtual session in 2025 and has been suspended twice by justices asking to study the file; the dockets record two justices' positions. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania and the Associação das Testemunhas Cristãs de Jeová are admitted friends of the court in ADPF 618. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/jehovahs-witnesses-bethel-gmva-lawsuit-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/jehovahs-witnesses-bethel-gmva-lawsuit-2026/ Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:05:08 +0000 A second stipulation, filed on 25 August 2026, pushes the three Jehovah's Witness organizations' deadline to answer the complaint or ask the court to dismiss it from 31 August to 19 October 2026. All three have lawyers on the record, and an amended affirmation records a further service on one of them. The allegations remain unproven. Filed 16 June 2026 under a January 2026 amendment reviving decades-old claims and extending liability to institutions. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/scotland-court-of-session-parens-patriae-blood-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/scotland-court-of-session-parens-patriae-blood-2026/ Fri, 21 Aug 2026 07:50:52 +0000 Lord Braid's opinion of 20 August 2026 covers three petitions that reached Scotland's highest civil court within about two weeks. In two, brought by Greater Glasgow Health Board, Jehovah's Witness parents had refused blood; the court authorised a transfusion only if the treating clinician judged it necessary to avoid serious harm including death. The third, from Borders Health Board, records no religious objection: parents who prefer natural remedies refused a tetanus jab after the family dog bit their daughter. The judge recorded that all three sets of parents were “loving parents.” Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-cloudflare-dmca-unmasking-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-cloudflare-dmca-unmasking-2026/ Sat, 25 Jul 2026 07:43:58 +0000 Judge Kenneth M. Karas denied the anonymous Jehovah's Witness's motion to cancel a DMCA subpoena to Cloudflare on 21 July 2026, leaving one question open: whether a protective order should come first. Both sides have now written to him about it, and through the docket's entries to 18 August 2026 the archivist has not been identified. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/echr-barsuk-gyl-ukraine-hate-crime-investigation-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/echr-barsuk-gyl-ukraine-hate-crime-investigation-2026/ Tue, 18 Aug 2026 07:35:12 +0000 In Barsuk and Gyl v. Ukraine, a unanimous Fifth Section Chamber held that Ukraine breached Article 3 and Article 9, each taken with Article 14, by describing the attacker's motive with a stock legal formula and letting the five-year prosecution deadline expire. The Court did not decide why the attack happened — only that Ukraine never seriously tried to find out. Each applicant was awarded EUR 4,000. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/rio-negro-blood-transfusion-registry-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/rio-negro-blood-transfusion-registry-2026/ Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:59:41 +0000 Río Negro's legislature approved the bill 28–15 on 6 August, the first of two votes its constitution requires before it can become law. The bill's operative text never mentions Jehovah's Witnesses; the explanatory findings filed with it name them, and recite three cases, two of them refusals a judge overrode. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/pennsylvania-ivy-hill-elders-clergy-privilege-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/pennsylvania-ivy-hill-elders-clergy-privilege-2026/ Tue, 11 Aug 2026 07:48:23 +0000 After nearly six years of litigation, the Commonwealth Court gave the Ivy Hill Congregation the declaration it asked for on 27 February 2026, while expressly declining to decide whether its elders actually qualify for the privilege. Two judges dissented, calling the result "judicial legislation by default." Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/moscow-court-123-jehovahs-witnesses-properties-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/moscow-court-123-jehovahs-witnesses-properties-2026/ Sun, 02 Aug 2026 12:34:56 +0000 The Kuzminsky District Court of Moscow granted a claim by Russia's Prosecutor General's Office on 31 July 2026, declaring void sixty donation agreements signed between August 2016 and early April 2017 and transferring 63 buildings and 60 land plots into state ownership. Prosecutors argued the transfers were made to keep the property from passing to the state when the organization was liquidated, and the court accepted that case; Kommersant and Pravo.ru report the defendants were Witness-linked entities in seven European countries and the United States, while other outlets described only a Swedish entity. Russian courts undid a Witness property transfer in much the same shape in 2017, against the organization's St Petersburg headquarters, and Russia has legislated against enforcing the European Court of Human Rights judgment that found the 2017 ban and liquidation unlawful. Jehovah's Witnesses have since responded, calling the confiscation defiance of that judgment, putting the assessed value of the 123 properties at about 415 million rubles, and saying the European entities that owned them were refused permission to take part in the 2017 liquidation proceedings. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-russia-bethel-fsia-service-ruling-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-russia-bethel-fsia-service-ruling-2026/ Tue, 28 Jul 2026 07:32:30 +0000 A federal judge in Washington threw the case out in September 2025 — not on its merits, but because the lawsuit papers had never been validly delivered. On 23 July 2026 he undid that dismissal, giving the Jehovah's Witnesses' Pennsylvania corporation 180 days to serve the Russian Federation, its health ministry and the state institute now using the site, this time through diplomatic channels. Documents filed with the complaint valued the property at more than $30 million. As of that opinion the court had decided nothing about whether a U.S. court can hear the claim at all. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/jehovahs-witnesses-gloucester-township-pilot-tax-dismissal-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/jehovahs-witnesses-gloucester-township-pilot-tax-dismissal-2026/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:39:58 +0000 A federal judge dismissed the congregation's bid to escape a 1999 payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal on its Turnersville assembly hall, ruling only that a federal court is the wrong forum — she decided nothing about whether the hall is tax-exempt. The congregation appealed, then dropped the appeal on 21 July 2026, the day its opening brief was due, leaving that dismissal to stand. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-gomes-de-souza-abuse-lawsuit-2025/ https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-gomes-de-souza-abuse-lawsuit-2025/ Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:00:32 +0000 A judge paused this unproven $100 million case on 4 May 2026 at the Governing Body's request. The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court on Nov. 12, 2025, alleges a Circuit Overseer abused Stella Cristina Gomes De Souza beginning at age 12 in Brazil and that Watchtower routed reports internally. The plaintiff asked the judge to reconsider on 18 May. A pause is not a dismissal. This account runs to the docket's last entry, 1 June 2026. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/un-wgad-26-jehovahs-witnesses-russia-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/un-wgad-26-jehovahs-witnesses-russia-2026/ Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:08:01 +0000 Opinion No. 30/2026 finds the detentions arbitrary under categories I, II and V and recommends release plus compensation. Russia responded nine days after the deadline, citing the extremism designation; the panel could not accept the reply as timely. The opinion is not binding, and the Working Group made no finding of torture or unfair trial. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/un-human-rights-committee-vilitkevich-russia-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/un-human-rights-committee-vilitkevich-russia-2026/ Sat, 18 Jul 2026 14:17:57 +0000 The Committee's 13 March 2026 ruling found unlawful arrest, religious discrimination and denial of minority rights in a 2018 Ufa case, and ordered unspecified compensation. It also dismissed several claims, refused an earlier emergency request, and has no power to enforce anything. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/new-york-watchtower-warne-abuse-records-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/new-york-watchtower-warne-abuse-records-2026/ Tue, 14 Jul 2026 18:24:54 +0000 In sister Child Victims Act cases over Robert Warne, a ministerial servant at a Middleport, N.Y. congregation, a court denied Watchtower's bid to shield its nationwide reports of known abusers and pierced clergy privilege over his confession letter — before both suits settled in 2026. The Governing Body was dismissed from one case and kept in the other. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-blue-lake-data-center-purchase-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-blue-lake-data-center-purchase-2026/ Sat, 11 Jul 2026 07:14:58 +0000 Jehovah's Witnesses closed on the 432,989-square-foot 'Blue Lake' facility across the lake from their New York world headquarters on June 26, 2026, for an undisclosed price. Finance https://jwfiles.com/article/echr-velev-bulgaria-door-to-door-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/echr-velev-bulgaria-door-to-door-2026/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:51:03 +0000 In Velev and Others v. Bulgaria, a unanimous ECHR Chamber found a Shumen ordinance banning "religious propaganda at residents' homes" violated Article 9. No damages were awarded, the applicants were never fined, and the ruling is not yet final. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/germany-bgh-kusserow-archive-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/germany-bgh-kusserow-archive-2026/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:51:03 +0000 Germany's Federal Court of Justice quashed a Cologne ruling and remanded the dispute over the Kusserow family archive held in a Dresden military museum. Ownership remains undecided. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/sweden-jehovahs-witnesses-state-subsidy-2025/ https://jwfiles.com/article/sweden-jehovahs-witnesses-state-subsidy-2025/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:50:18 +0000 Sweden's Agency for Support to Faith Communities (SST) ruled on 24 October 2025 that Jehovah's Witnesses failed new 'democracy conditions' for state grants, citing shunning and membership limits. On 7 May 2026 the Stockholm Administrative Court overturned the denial and ordered the grant restored; the agency has appealed. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-apostates-mentally-diseased-2011/ https://jwfiles.com/article/watchtower-apostates-mentally-diseased-2011/ Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:07:41 +0000 A July 15, 2011 study article urged Jehovah's Witnesses to shun former members it described, citing 1 Timothy 6:3-4, as 'mentally diseased.' The wording drew UK press coverage, a Portsmouth police complaint that produced no charge, and an Australian tribunal filing. Doctrine https://jwfiles.com/article/georgia-jehovahs-witnesses-bible-study-abuse-lawsuit-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/georgia-jehovahs-witnesses-bible-study-abuse-lawsuit-2026/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 19:59:12 +0000 A federal complaint filed February 13, 2026, alleges the Governing Body and three Watchtower entities failed to protect a Cordele teenager from more than 100 acts of abuse by his Bible-study instructor, who is separately convicted. The organization's alleged liability is unproven; the case is pending. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/maine-fort-kent-jehovahs-witnesses-abuse-lawsuit-2025/ https://jwfiles.com/article/maine-fort-kent-jehovahs-witnesses-abuse-lawsuit-2025/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 19:59:12 +0000 Shannon Simendinger's civil complaint, filed January 8, 2025 in Aroostook County Superior Court, names a Maine congregation, Watchtower's New York corporation, and three men; the allegations are unproven and the case is pending. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/bodies-of-elders-child-abuse-letter-2012/ https://jwfiles.com/article/bodies-of-elders-child-abuse-letter-2012/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:58:02 +0000 A confidential October 1, 2012 letter to U.S. bodies of elders routed child-abuse allegations through Watch Tower's Legal and Service Departments, kept the two-witness rule, and let the branch decide who counts as a "predator" — while saying nothing about reporting to secular authorities. Leadership https://jwfiles.com/article/echr-pindo-mulla-forced-blood-transfusion-spain-2024/ https://jwfiles.com/article/echr-pindo-mulla-forced-blood-transfusion-spain-2024/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:58:02 +0000 In Pindo Mulla v. Spain, the ECHR Grand Chamber unanimously found that Spain breached Rosa Edelmira Pindo Mulla's rights when a duty judge authorized three transfusions during emergency surgery despite her advance written refusals. The Court faulted the decision-making process, not the doctors' medical judgment. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/governing-body-higher-education-personal-decision-2025/ https://jwfiles.com/article/governing-body-higher-education-personal-decision-2025/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:58:02 +0000 In Governing Body Update #5, released on jw.org on August 22, 2025, David Splane addressed 'additional secular education' and, per ex-member transcriptions, presented it more as a personal choice than the spiritual risk decades of Watchtower literature had described. Doctrine https://jwfiles.com/article/surviving-jehovahs-witnesses-hbo-docuseries-2026/ https://jwfiles.com/article/surviving-jehovahs-witnesses-hbo-docuseries-2026/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:58:02 +0000 The three-part series Sobrevivir al Paraiso: Mas alla de los Testigos de Jehova premiered on HBO Max on 20 February 2026, tracing former Spanish members' accounts of abuse, shunning, and legal action. Reception has so far been mixed and thinly covered by major outlets. Media https://jwfiles.com/article/videoland-jehovah-van-god-los-documentary-2024/ https://jwfiles.com/article/videoland-jehovah-van-god-los-documentary-2024/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:58:02 +0000 The three-part series, released March 2024 on RTL's streaming service, is built on testimony from 57 former members and covers abuse, shunning, and apocalyptic teaching. Media https://jwfiles.com/article/anthony-morris-removed-governing-body-2023/ https://jwfiles.com/article/anthony-morris-removed-governing-body-2023/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:40:15 +0000 On February 22, 2023, the organization behind Jehovah's Witnesses announced in one sentence that Governing Body member Anthony Morris III 'no longer serves' — gave no reason — and then scrubbed his recorded talks from jw.org over the following weeks. Leadership https://jwfiles.com/article/australia-jehovahs-witnesses-national-redress-scheme-2021/ https://jwfiles.com/article/australia-jehovahs-witnesses-national-redress-scheme-2021/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:40:15 +0000 Named in July 2020 among institutions refusing to join the National Redress Scheme, the organization agreed in March 2021 to comply after the government moved to strip holdout charities of their tax status. Legal https://jwfiles.com/article/belgium-cassation-jehovahs-witnesses-shunning-2023/ https://jwfiles.com/article/belgium-cassation-jehovahs-witnesses-shunning-2023/ Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:40:15 +0000 The Court of Cassation on 19 December 2023 rejected the final appeals in the "Ghent case," affirming that limiting contact with disfellowshipped former members falls within freedom of religion and association. Legal