Jehovah’s Witnesses are a “destructive cult” and the former members, “victims”, according to a ruling

The religious confession Jehovah's Christian Witnesses are a "destructive sect" due to "excessive control" about his faithful. This is detailed in a ruling from the Court of First Instance number 6 of Torrejón de Ardoz that has determined that freedom of expression protects Jehovah's Witnesses from being classified in this way. Also that its former members be classified as "victims". In this way, the lawsuit filed by this religious organization against the Spanish Association of Victims of Jehovah's Witnesses is dismissed, reports Ep. This lawsuit was filed because the religious denomination considered that the association included in its statutes "a series of offensive statements against the honor of Jehovah's Christian Witnesses and all its members." The Chamber declares that there has been no violation of the right to honor of the religious confession by maintaining the rights to freedom of expression and information their prevalence over the right to honorr. Likewise, it absolves the Spanish Association of Victims of Jehovah's Witnesses of all claims made against it and condemns the organization to pay the procedural costs.

The ruling states that the expressions that are the subject of this litigation in reference to whether the organization is "a destructive sect" They are not, at all, trivial, since "it is about the attribution of serious and serious consequences to behaviors based on beliefs of the demanding confession." Specifically, it cites "social death, ostracism, mental disorders, autolytic ideas or acts, discrimination, concealment of possible crimes, omission of vital medical treatment or sectarian behavior,", among others. Given this, he emphasizes that this does not directly mean that they are insulting, even if "the religious confession considers them degrading and insulting." In the argument, the judge states that the objective of the association is not the extinction of the religious confession, but its adaptation "to what the association considers fairer norms and to inform whoever wishes to approach what the defendant institution understands." as consequences of that approach, which can be negative for people's lives".

Regarding the classification of victims, the magistrate points out that "many people claim to have suffered many damages as a result of their experience as followers of a religious confession, and prohibiting this term in the name of the Association would be "an unjustified censorship for these people who freely express their opinion based on first-person experiences." It points out that all the declarants proposed by the Association considered themselves victims, and have been accredited, at least as truthful, practices that "are widely carried out and generate a lot of pain, and destabilize mentally to the people to whom it is addressed", such as expulsion and everything that entails. "These are behaviors that generate damage, due to recklessness, without malicious intent, since, as the defendant's deponents also admitted, the majority of people do so convinced that they are acting well and they are good people," adds the resolution. Thus, it emphasizes that although "the plaintiff entity alleges that it is contrary to its honor, greater protection deserves the freedom of those who consider that they have suffered multiple harm, to group together in an association that incorporates the word or term victim in its public name."