Sweden Massacre
In an attempt to answer recent charges of child abuse coverups, Watchtower of Sweden reacted in a way that can only be described as shooting themselves in both feet. They circulated a letter to all congregations that basically singled out one person on the program and called him a liar. To add insult ot injury they then placed several thousand dollars in newspaper ads to print this same letter to media across Sweden. This is a copy of the advertizement:
You can read it in English here:
Jehovah's Witnesses answer to accusations in the program 'Mission-Investigate'
In a segment of the television program "Mission-Investigate" of the April 8, 2003 , Jehovah's Witnesses were accused of "protecting pedophiles".
The program described among others a specific case where an individual, a 26 year old man, unfortunately was sexually abused in his childhood. It was introduced as a case of pedophilia, which is defined as an adult person involved with molestation of a child. This story was, like other statements in the program, both misleading and deceptive for the following reasons
* FACT Both persons involved were children (approximately 8 and 4 years of age) when the sexual acts between them started, around 1980, they where both still underage (approximately 14 and 10 years of age) when the sexual acts stopped in 1987.
* FACT The sexual acts between the boys started five years before any of their parents became Jehovah's Witnesses. The sexual acts stopped before any of the boys became members of the congregation in the autumn of 1988 and spring of 1991.
* FACT In 1996, after the boys and their parents had been Jehovah's Witnesses for some years, the elders in the congregation were info rmed about the sexual acts that had been committed in the past. The families decided not to report the case to the social or legal authorities. The elders respected the wishes of the involved families.
* FACT The older boy has never served as an elder or traveling overseer in any of the congregations of the religious community of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Television viewers that value justice and fairness have appreciated being provided this important information. We are dismayed that those who produce "Mission-Investigate" omit these and other pertinent facts. Our members and sympathizers are deeply insulted, over the fact that misinformation is being used to try and associate Jehovah's Witnesses with sexual molestation of children. We will therefore take whatever legal actions necessary to stop these false allegations.
Our guidelines concerning sexual abuse against children are well-founded and have support in the Bible. A person in a position of responsibility in the congregation that is found guilty of sexual abuse against children will be removed from his position.
(1 Tim 3:1, 2) All Jehovah's Witnesses are expected to live according to the high standards found in the Bible, which means to be clean in a physical, mental, moral and spiritual respect. (2 Cor. 7:1; Eph 4:17-19; 1 Thess 2:4)
Swedish law does not demand priest or ministers in a religious community to report sexual molestation of a child. Our organization however has always accepted that the victim, the victim's family or close adult relatives or whoever who knows a case of child abuse have the absolute right to report it.
Jehovah's Witnesses April 30, 2003
Chairman Branch Committee Bengt Hanson
WATCHTOWER
Box 5 732 21 Arboga
Jehovah’s Witnesses abhor sexual abuse of children. We love our children. It is of great importance for us that the children are safe and protected. We handle this with the greatest seriousness.
This action resulted in a response from Anders, the young man that was slandered by this information. He simply put up an actual fact sheet of what the real facts were. You can read this fact sheet below, as you can see this was pure evil against an abuse survivor directed by New York home office to punish this young man and his family.
The Actual Facts
In the program "Mission-Investigate" there were five separate cases of abuse as follows:
• Elder abusing minor boys. He forces them amon g other things to have oral sex. He was found guilty in a court of law. He also confesses his crime. In the documents from the court it is written that the congregation was aware of the problem for five years previous to the conviction.
• Ministerial servant molesting his two stepdaughters. The elders convince them not to report to the police. He was removed from his position in the congregation, but not disfellowshipped.
• Elder molesting a fourteen year old mentally handicapped girl. The school where she attends reports it to the police, he confesses in a police investigation. He is removed from his position as an elder, but not disfellowshipped. (According to the report from social services he also molested at least two other children)
• Elder confesses on the television program that he has sexual assaulted a thirteen year old girl. Four additional witnesses come forward to say he also molested them. This elder serves as a sub CO and special pioneer.
None of the above cases were mentioned in the letter from Watchtower that went to all congregations and media in Sweden .
Regarding the 26 year old mentioned, Anders, his sister Johanna, was also molested but not mentioned in the letter from Watchtower.
What are the true "facts"
Fact - There was two brothers that were molesting multiple children in the congregation. The oldest of them was born in 1973.
Fact - Anders was born 1977 and molested first by the older brother. It is correct the molestation started when they where both minor, but the abuse was not stopped until Anders was fourteen years of age and the molester was eighteen years of age in 1991. The molester was baptized in 1988. In Sweden molestation is considered an adult crime starting at age fifteen.
Fact - In addition to Anders the older brother molested at least four other children. This included Anders sister Johanna, who is six years younger than the molester. The abuse of Johanna stopped when she was twelve in 1991.
Fact - Anders mother and the mother of the molesters were baptized 1985 and both fathers shortly thereafter. The molestations continued while both parents were members of the congregation, and more than two years after the older molester was baptized.
Fact - The younger of the two brothers was molesting children all up to mid nineties, when everything was revealed. The younger brother was then disfellowshipped and the older brother, who was a ministerial servant, and serving at Bethel in Sweden , was removed from his position and dismissed from the bethel family. He was privately reproved and instructed to apologize to Anders and his family.
Fact - Anders parents urged the elders to let the two young men go to therapy, but the elders didn’t think this was a good idea and of course the parents followed "theocratic direction".
Anders mother called the Watchtower home office in Sweden and asked from whom the information was obtained to make the allegations to media and the congregations, she was sent a written response. You can read the original Swedish version here and an English translation below:
Watchtower
Bible and Tract Society of Sweden
5-7-03
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
XXXXXXX
Re: Telephone conversation with the Branch Office
Dear sister XXX,
We are writing to you regarding your telephone call to the Branch Office on May 1, 2003 . In that conversation you asked who it was that provided information for the “fact” statements in “Jehovah’s Witnesses answer to the accusations in the program ‘Mission Investigation.’”
The basis for the information provided was given by the brother that was publicly identified on the television program and in other media as the paedophile.
The brother turned himself over to police for a full investigation. We can inform you that the abuser has given a full confession for all the crimes up to age fifteen, in the event there had been further misconduct after that age he would have been brought to court.
Additional information was obtained through the branch office via the publisher record cards.
With brotherly regards to you and your family, your brothers at the branch office.
Watchtower B. & T. Society of Sweden
As you can see the Watchtower put in writing that they took the word of the child molester as a basis for their "fact sheet." This illustrates clearly what we have been saying since day one at silentlambs. Victims are silenced, called a liar or discredited and the child molester is protected and believed. Did the child molester have "two eye-witnesses?" Then why did Watchtower choose to take his word? It seems the "two eye-witness" principle only applies to raped children while child molesters are exempt. Can you see a problem with Watchtower policy?
As a result of the actions of Watchtower the Swedish program "Mission/Investigate" decided to offer a followup to the program on 05/12/03. A translation of the summary of program that is offered on the Swedish website can be found here,
Translation:
After the Mission/Investigate report about the sexual abuse among Jehovah's Witnesses (which was aired 08.04.03) it first became silent, even though the reporter Janne Josefsson on several occations asked the leader of Jehovah's Witnesses for a commentary. Then came the answer – in the form of an advertisement which denied the accusations and claimed that the report was spreading lies. But it turned out that the whole advertisement builds entirely upon the story told by the abuser.
A few weeks ago Mission/Investigate revealed that the congregations within Jehovah's Witnesses protect child abusers which have abused children in their own congregation. One of the victims which came forward was Anders who told how his congregation had dissuaded him from reporting the abuse to the police, and that he didn’t receive any support and the abuser was still an active Witness going from house to house Witnessing .
Anders and his sister was the only ones who dared coming forward with their faces and names in the report, but there was also several other people who told similar stories from other congregations. In the report there is even a person in a congregation that admits to abusing a young girl.
The leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses branch office in Sweden refused to be interviewed, unless they could formulate the questions that were going to be asked themselves, they also hid from the reporter. Instead the spokesman Bengt Hansson chose to respond to the report a few weeks later in the form of buying space in several newspapers, with money from their members. It was published in among others, Expressen , Göteborgsposten , Svenska Dagbladet and Kvällsposten . In this ad he claims that the report was misleading and unfair.
The ad claims that Anders lied in the report, because “both of the involved were children (about 8 respectively 4 years) when the sexual abuse between them started… abd that they were still minors (14 and 10) when the abuse stopped in 1987.”
It also claimed that at the time during which the sexual acts had taken place none of the involved or their parents had been members of Jehovah's Witnesses. According to the ad Anders and his parents had also made a deal with the elders in the congregation not to report the abuse to the police or social authorities after the abuse was discovered.
- I am astonished that no one from the Watchtower Society has contacted me or my parents before the ad was published, says a disappointed Anders to Mission/Investigate.
Instead Anders received a letter from the branch office in Arboga , telling him that the facts in the ad build on information given by the person identified as the abuser in the report
- This is horrible. It isn’t true. The abuse did not stop when I was 10 years old and we were Jehovah's Witnesses when it happened. It isn’t true that we made a deal not to report anything to the police, says Anders
Since the report was aired Anders and his family has received much support but also a lot of indignant reactions from members of Jehovah's Witnesses. Many of their friends have severed contact and they are being accused of running “ satan’s errand”. The congregation that Anders belong to has reacted with silence – a behaviour that further enhances the impression that Jehovah's Witnesses don’t support victims of sexual abuse but instead protect the perpetrator.
Together with Janne Josefsson Anders decide to call the branch office in Arboga to ask the leaders why they chose to believe the abuser and not Anders. He gets Lars-Erik Eriksson on the phone, he refuse to answer Anders question and ask him to formulate his questions in a letter. When Janne Josefsson ask permission to ask some questions Lars-Erik Eriksson hang up the phone.
One of the Newspapers which were asked to provide space for the ad but refused was Dagens Nyheter . The newspapers publisher and chief editor Jan Wifstrand chose this course after he himself was denied an ordinary interview with the Jehovah's Witness leaders.
- If they don’t want to talk to us about what really is going on, they should not be able to buy ad space to do it, he adds.
The advertisement published by Jehovah's Witnesses as an answer deals with only one of the examples of abuse and do not mention the other examples which were raised in the report.
REPORTER: Jan Josefsson
RESEARCH: Lars- Göran Svensson
PHOTO: Rune Bergström
EDITING: Åke Toresson
The program is no longer available online . The program was in Swedish but you will notice at the end William H. Bowen is given the last word. His comment was made before the first program ever aired and ended up being a kind of prophecy for what happened to Anders in Sweden. The words were to the effect that no matter how accurate the information was presented it would be labeled as a product of Satan and those on the program would be discredited. It appears this is one prophecy that came true.