JEHOVAH’S
WITNESSES
More than 10 years revealing secrets because there is no excuse for secrecy in religion – w1997 June 1; Dan 2:47; Matt 10:26; Mark 4:22; Luke 12:2; Acts 4:19, 20.
JEHOVAH’S
WITNESSES
More than 10 years revealing secrets because there is no excuse for secrecy in religion – w1997 June 1; Dan 2:47; Matt 10:26; Mark 4:22; Luke 12:2; Acts 4:19, 20.
Originally published on September 24, 2021 on forum18 and written by Felix Corley
Kazakhstan – The court sided with the “expert analysis” of the Justice Ministry, even though the court was informed that 63 percent of the analysis was plagiarized from the Russians and thus concluded that reading publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses harms mental health. Jehovah’s Witnesses were ordered to pay over 3 years’ average wages to former members.
Two married couples who claim their mental health was harmed by reading the publication produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses, have won compensation from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Please see Editor’s comments below.
According to an article published by Forum 18, a 23-page analysis was conducted and signed by psychiatrists Zhannat Tatykhodzhayeva and Altinai Babykpayeva; and psychologist Aizhan Kudaibergenova, all of whom are attached to the Kazakh Justice Ministry. This was requested on 26 June 2019 by Lyudmila Kunpan, the lawyer for the Nur-Sultan couple (Yergali Abishov and his wife Irina Kvan), who sought an “expert analysis” of sixteen (16) Jehovah’s Witness publications from the Justice Ministry’s “Centre for Judicial Expert Analysis”. The analysis of the sixteen (16) publications was completed just eight days later on 4 July 2019.
Lawyers representing Jehovah’s Witnesses counter-presented a April 6, 2021 independent analysis they had commissioned from Galina Mustakimova of Kostanai State Pedagogical Institute. This independent analysis found that 63 percent of the Justice Ministry’s “expert analysis” had been plagiarised from an 18 December 2008 Russian “expert analysis”, without acknowledging this source. The Russian 25,000 word “analysis” was claimed to have been produced in four days, and was challenged at the time. Mustakimova concluded that the 2019 analysis “cannot be accepted as comprehensive, complete, scientifically based, or in accordance with the normative demands presented to the specialists for investigation”.
The court lacked objectivity and sided with the “expert analysis” of the Justice Ministry, even though the court was informed that 63 percent of the analysis was plagiarized and thus concluded that reading Jehovah’s Witness texts harms mental health. Jehovah’s Witness communities were ordered to pay over 3 years’ average wages to plaintiffs.
It is abundantly clear that the State exploited their own bias by commissioning their own employees (psychiatrists Zhannat Tatykhodzhayeva and Altinai Babykpayeva as well as psychologist Aizhan Kudaibergenova) to conduct an expert analysis of sixteen (16) publications produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is very unclear what prevented the Justice Ministry from sourcing an independent expert.
Sixty-three (63) percent of the 23 page report was “copied and pasted” by three State employees who claimed to be subject matter “experts”. There is no evidence in the Forum 18 article that suggests that the lawyer for the former Jehovah’s Witness couple, Lyudmila Kunpan, requested an independent analysis of the sixteen (16) Watchtower publications.
According to Forum 18, a legal expert noted that the analysis on the 16 Jehovah’s Witness publications had been produced by an institution that is clearly affiliated with the state, the Justice Ministry’s “Centre for Judicial Expert Analysis”. “But I wouldn’t say that it represents the view of the state,” the legal expert stressed. “It is the view of the specific experts working in a state institution and providing such services.”
The legal expert pointed out that the analysis had been commissioned on a paying basis and could have been alternatively commissioned from other institutions. “But simply because an expert analysis is conducted by a centre of judicial expert analysis, people think it is solid.”
Whilst any analysis of Watchtower publications is welcomed to determine “hidden commands for the full subjugation to and carrying out of all necessary recommendations and orders by elders” that can “leads to a change in the mood or indeed to the ‘modification of the mood’ and as a whole to the violation of the personal construction and could become a cause of social de-adaptation and neurotisation of the personality”, such an analysis must be conducted independently, unbiased, objectively, without fear or favor and without State interference. This did not happen in Kazakhstan and the actions of the court must be taken with a very generous amount of salt.
According to Wikipedia, Kazakhstan’s human rights situation is described as poor by independent observers. In its 2015 report of human rights in the country, Human Rights Watch said that “Kazakhstan heavily restricts freedom of assembly, speech, and religion.”[109] It has also described the government as authoritarian.[110] In 2014, authorities closed newspapers, jailed or fined dozens of people after peaceful but unsanctioned protests, and fined or detained worshipers for practising religion outside state controls. Forum 18 is littered with numerous articles of human rights infringements.
Its against this history of a lack of respect for human rights that the following details are given.
According to the Forum 18 article, Yergali Abishov and his wife Irina Kvan (one of the plantiffs mentioned above) were Jehovah’s Witnesses for about two decades, but left in spring 2019. In August 2019, Abishov registered an organisation called Terra Libera. The following month he spoke at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) in Warsaw, attacking the Jehovah’s Witness community and what he saw as his own government’s failure to prosecute members of religious communities.
A Kazakh journalist who wished to remain anonymous commented to Forum 18 that civil society is “very weak” in Kazakhstan. “People are afraid to say a word out of place. And here you have a successful organization [Terra Libera] created in an instant: they have people, they went to the OSCE, they held a demonstration, they produce various videos, and they gain money through the courts. I don’t believe them.” This would most likely explain why the State chose their own employees of the Justice Ministry for the court case, instead of an independent agency for an unbiased, objective analysis. (Bold and Italic mines)
Maksat Bekbembetov and his wife Alina (one of the plantiffs in the above court case) were Jehovah’s Witnesses for about two decades, but left in 2016 and 2018 respectively. Since then, the Bekbembetov’s have been active in opposing Jehovah’s Witnesses publicly.
In October 2020, a local television company broadcast footage of a demonstration against Jehovah’s Witnesses by up to 20 people which Bekbembetov organised and addressed outside a house of culture in Taraz. Unlike the regime’s normal reaction to demonstrations, no police were visible at the demonstration in the television report. He subsequently posted the report on his YouTube channel. (Bold and Italic mines)
Bekbembetov’s YouTube channel also contains material produced by Terra Libera featuring him, Yergali Abishov and other former Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“How did they get permission for a demonstration?” a Kazakh journalist who wished to remain anonymous commented to Forum 18. The Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law has documented, in a report published on 6 April 2021, that the regime repeatedly severely restricts exercise of the right of peaceful assembly and to hold demonstrations. (Bold and Italic mines)
The journalist commented on the October 2020 footage and other videos by Bekbembetov and Abishov that “most likely it was a state commission”, that is paid for by the State.
These former Jehovah’s Witnesses are most likely aware that their extreme forms of activism will greatly appeal to an extremely oppressive and highly controlling regime, who is opposed to any transparency, scrutiny and accountability – a regime that may meet the criteria of Dr. Steven Hassan’s cult BITE model. They left being agents of a captive religious cult to become agents of another cult.
Their actions as described above does not mean well for other former Jehovah’s Witnesses who are involved in educating the public about Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Lester Somrah writes about the beliefs and practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses on his social media platforms and was baptized as a member in 1998.