News and primary-source research on the Watchtower organization
In April 2026 Norway's highest court ruled the state acted unlawfully when it deregistered Jehovah's Witnesses and cut their funding over shunning. The justices were unanimous that the state had not shown harm to children — and split only on a separate question about adults. It was the end of a five-year fight, and part of a wider European reckoning.
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.
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.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on 9 May 2023 that Finland may require Jehovah's Witnesses to obtain householder consent before noting personal data during their ministry — no violation of Articles 9 or 6.
In 2017 a Russian court declared the Witnesses' New World Translation "extremist" — sidestepping a law that protects scripture by accepting expert testimony that the translation was not really a Bible.
A 2017 Supreme Court ruling outlawed the organization nationwide, liquidated 395 local entities, and seized property — without a single finding of violence. Europe's top human-rights court later called the whole campaign unlawful, but Russia, by then out of the Council of Europe, refused to comply.