Jehovah S Witnesses

There's a joke that there is no such thing as a Jehovah's Witness bystander. That's because all believers must witness, which means preaching and knocking on doors. "You bear a certain degree of guilt if you don't," said Harry Thompson of Studio City, who added that he has been witnessing for decades. Thompson called it akin to a search-and-rescue operation.

Canada's first sextuplets, born more than a week ago, are facing an additional complication to the usual premature baby's struggle for survival: Their parents' religion forbids blood transfusions, a typical part of a preemie's treatment. The babies' condition remains a mystery, and the hospital refuses to confirm reports that one infant has died. The six babies were born Jan. 5 and 6 in Vancouver, British Columbia, to parents who are Jehovah's Witnesses.

A victims' rights group released documents Thursday that showed the Jehovah's Witnesses settled lawsuits with 16 people, 14 of the cases in California, who claimed that they were sexually abused by church elders or that church officials failed to act on abuse allegations. At a news conference in Nashville, the group, called Silentlambs, demanded that the denomination change its policy for responding to sex abuse reports.

A Moscow court has banned the religious activities of Jehovah's Witnesses from Russia's capital in a move critics called a step back for religious freedom. Prosecutors said the Jehovah's Witnesses group destroys families and fosters hatred. Golovinsky District Court on Friday barred the group in Moscow under a provision that lets courts ban religious groups thought to incite hatred or intolerance.

More than a dozen lawsuits nationally, many by the same law firm or its affiliates, accuse Jehovah's Witnesses officials of covering up sexual abuse, sometimes by congregation leaders who the suits claim used their positions of authority to abuse children. The most recent series of lawsuits was filed last week in three California counties. The law firms involved are holding public meetings this week in Sacramento, Red Bluff, Clearlake and Napa in a search for more alleged victims and witnesses.

The Quebec Court of Appeal has upheld a lower court's decision and struck down a municipal bylaw restricting when Jehovah's Witnesses can go door to door to promote their religion. The city of Blainville had said many of its residents did not want Witnesses at their doors on weekends and in the evenings.

A Jehovah's Witness in Singapore, fired from his teaching job for refusing to sing the Singapore national anthem, has gone to court in an effort to win back his position. "Based on my constitutional rights, I believed that my refraining from singing the national anthem and [reciting] the national pledge . . . would not be prejudicial," Peter Nappalli told the court Monday, Reuters reported. Reciting the pledge and singing the anthem during morning assemblies were made mandatory in 1988.

A Pomona Superior Court jury convicted drunk driver Keith Cook on Friday in the death of Jadine Russell, rejecting the Azusa auto mechanic's claim that his victim caused her own demise when she declined a blood transfusion for religious reasons.

A fascinating convergence of religion and the law brought the media in force to a Pomona courtroom Thursday, where a jury must decide if a suspected drunk driver killed Jadine Russell, or her refusal of a blood transfusion did. As the vehicular murder trial of Keith Cook entered its second day, his attorney tried to show that Cook was not as drunk nor driving as fast as the prosecution suggests; and thus was not murderous when his truck plowed into Russell's car March 7.

Chance, religion and the law collided with life-or-death consequences on a dark stretch of Sierra Madre Avenue in Azusa in March, when a suspected drunk driver hit a disabled car that plowed into four people standing on the roadside. Most seriously injured was Jadine Russell, a 55-year-old mother of five and a devout Jehovah's Witness who died hours later, after refusing a blood transfusion that might have saved her life. "No blood!"