Children in High Demand Organizations

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February 28, 2007

Children of Waco

On The Learning Channel Feb 28 and March 1

"They were soldiers in the army of David Koresh. Released in the first week of the 51-day standoff with the FBI, 21 children of the Branch Davidian survived and they'll tell us their versions of that deadly confrontation."

http://tlc.discovery.com/
tvlistings/episode.jsp?
episode=0&cpi=55778&gid=
0&channel=TLC

Posted by Perry at 03:16 PM

February 20, 2007

B.C's blind eye to polygamy

National Post

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/
news/issuesideas/story.html?id=20
cec99c-5986-48d8-a375-
28456c81a3e2&k=35990

RAY ARGYLE
February 20, 2007

The Creston Valley opens up dramatically as one approaches it by road through the Purcell Mountains, a range that towers over this remote district in southeastern British Columbia. The Valley is filled with cherry and apple orchards, hay fields, a bird sanctuary and plush golf courses. Its bountiful crops include the renowned Kokanee beer, brewed by 90 employees of the Columbia Brewery in Creston, a town of 5,000.

More notable is the fact that the Valley's girls produce a lot of babies. Most are fathered by much older men who admit to having several wives. In the most recent period measured by the B.C. Vital Statistics Agency, 69 girls 18 or younger gave birth. All were members of the breakaway sect of fundamentalist Mormons who have created, on the tablelands outside Creston, the polygamous settlement of Bountiful.

Polygamy is illegal in Canada and is punishable by up to five years in prison. Some of the fathers, by virtue of their church status, occupy positions of authority over the young mothers. Normally this would put them in violation of the Criminal Code sanction against sexual touching of their charges. Neither of these seemingly clear-cut legal certainties has prevented the 1,000-strong colony from thriving unchallenged by the RCMP, the courts or the B.C. Attorney-General for nearly 50 years.

As one who grew up in Creston and observed the arrival of families where girls were raised to have babies and boys were taught to defer to their male elders in their choice of wives, I was able to see how this affected the children. The fact I had mainstream Mormon relatives who followed the dictates of their church and rejected polygamy, enabled me to look on the Bountiful experience with some empathy.

The uneasy stand-off at Bountiful raises the question of whether polygamy has now gained de facto legal status in Canada.

Equally worrisome is the legal limbo into which Bountiful residents have been cast. Families are forced to live a quasi-legal existence, mothers are denied access to government social benefits and police and social workers will act only if they receive complaints of child abuse. The rule of silence and obedience imposed by sect leaders ensures none are ever received.

Despite several police investigations, the latest of which is still under review by B.C.'s Criminal Justice branch, authorities have so far declined to prosecute. Two retired B.C. judges told the government that leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints would likely convince a court that the Charter entitles them to engage in polygamy as a religious practice.

The current Attorney General, Wally Oppal, says he doesn't subscribe to that view. He told me he instructed the RCMP to "resurrect" its investigations, adding that "our greatest problem is in getting witnesses who will testify." He is hopeful that may change.

"Invariably where there's polygamy there's abuse of women," Mr. Oppal added. "I'm most concerned about the sexual abuse of young girls."

Winston Blackmore, who leads one of two factions in the Bountiful sect and is reputed to have more than 100 children and 20 wives, has strong views on the Charter of Rights. He told me "the Charter should protect all Canadians as it does the journalists, politicians, homosexuals, swingers and swappers." He bemoans the fact that because the B.C. government declared Bountiful to be a commune in 1988, "no one here has been able to get any social services assistance. The Child Tax Benefit seems to be available for every other Canadian family but not for mine."

Polygamists like Blackmore legally wed only one wife but take "sister wives" in "celestial unions." This is a violation of section 293 of the Criminal Code which outlaws conjugal unions with more than one person at the same time, regardless of whether a binding marriage has taken place.

Were the law against polygamy to be overthrown, Canada would face yet more wrenching changes in family law. Immigration barriers that keep out polygamous families could fall.

In contrast to the advice given B.C., four of five reports commissioned for the federal government urge prosecution of polygamists.

One expert, Rebecca Cook of the University of Toronto, has told Ottawa that "Polygamy is a form of discrimination and therefore a violation of international law. Canada has an obligation to take all appropriate steps."

A dissenting view, and here may lie a solution to the Bountiful stand-off, came from Professor Martha Bailey of Queen's University. She urged that the polygamy law be withdrawn because it does not adequately "address the harms associated with polygamy." A new law could then be framed to deal with such harms. Prof. Bailey would even permit foreign polygamous marriages to be recognized in Canada, arguing that only in this way can the wives and children of these unions be protected.

Few Canadians care today about the sexual proclivities of their neighbours. They do care, however, about brain washing of young girls in fundamentalist Mormon communities who are coerced into entering multiple marriages as a religious obligation.

Winston Blackmore has admitted in an interview that he had been married to at least one girl under 16. In the U.S., Fundamentalist leader Warren Jeffs is on trial for statutory rape for his involvement in the coerced marriage of a 14-year-old.

While authorities ponder their next step, public concern is rising. Susan Lambert of the B.C. Teachers' Federation (BCTF) says her group is petitioning Premier Gordon Campbell and is "hugely worried about trafficking in women and children from one closed community to another."

Ms. Lambert says the BCTF also opposes diverting public money to schools where there is "obvious subjugation of rights of the children to a quality education." Bountiful's two independent schools now receive $600,000 a year from the B.C. government.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has called on Premier Campbell to look into allegations of "inadequate education and the mistreatment of women and children in Bountiful" but president Jason Gratl says "there's little evidence the province has investigated the underlying problems." The Ministry of Education, he adds, "has done little or nothing."

A continuation of the stalemate at Bountiful will serve only to put women and children at further risk. The Criminal Code's polygamy section and laws on sexual abuse must either be enforced, or replaced with legislation that respects individual rights while protecting women and children from institutionalized sexual and emotional entrapment.

rayargyle1000@msn.com

- - -
- Ray Argyle has reported from the B.C. legislature and is author of Turning Points: the Campaigns that Changed Canada.

Posted by Perry at 04:25 PM

Judge's ruling warns Brethren

The Age - Australia

http://www.theage.com.au/news/
investigations/judges-ruling-
warns-brethren/2007/02/20/
1171733764442.html

Michael Bachelard
February 21, 2007

A JUDGE has given three members of an Exclusive Brethren family suspended jail sentences for denying a father an access visit to two of his children.

The judgement was an emphatic statement by the Family Court that it will not tolerate the Exclusive Brethren continuing to flout court orders in pursuit of the sect's policy of strict separation of its members from those who have left the church.

Justice Robert Benjamin imposed four-month suspended prison sentences on the children's mother, a son and her son-in-law.

"What happened in this case is that the court said to these people, 'Do not breach these orders', in circumstances where the finding was clear that the separation of the children and their father was at the higher end of emotional abuse," Justice Benjamin said.

"I made it absolutely clear. Yet some two or three weeks later, a breach occurred. In this case a term of imprisonment is entirely appropriate."

Justice Benjamin concluded that the family had put pressure on the children not to go on the visit.

"These children are entitled to have a relationship with their father, and the steps that the respondents have taken to prevent the relationship are extraordinary and appalling."

The son and son-in-law were found to have aided and abetted the mother, and got the same sentences.

Justice Benjamin suspended the sentences because of the otherwise good record of the mother, her son and son-in-law, and because of the young men's youth. However, they will go to prison if, in the next 12 months, they do not comply with the orders for access, or if the two young men go to the place where the children, aged eight and 13, are handed over.

The mother is not allowed to take any male member of the Brethren with her when she hands over the children, because the judge found men exercised power over women.

He also ordered the mother to pay all the costs in the case, including the father's and those of the independent children's lawyer.

The case arose from a December 21 judgement that the father be given regular access to the two youngest of the couple's eight children, aged eight and 13. But when he went to pick them up at the mother's house for a week-long visit on January 14, he found his son and son-in-law there, even though they were supposed to be at church. The young children, a boy and a girl, told the father they did not want to go with him.

"I knocked on the door, the children came to the door and said, without emotion, that 'I'm not coming with you'. I said why. They said, 'I'm just not'. I said to (my daughter), 'The judge did say that it's OK'.

"And immediately at that point she turned around and looked up at her mother and gave a smile, which troubled me, as if some preconceived plan was in place," the father said.

"What I saw was (one young man) standing in the doorway with his arms folded … an overbearing attitude. (The other young man) was standing on the other side of the door … there were four adults there, and I saw intimidated children."

But the mother gave evidence that the children were presented for the father to take, their bags were packed and on the veranda, and she had told them they were allowed to go. But during a two-hour stand-off, a police officer was called but could not deliver the children to the father.

The mother admitted under cross-examination that members of the Exclusive Brethren had deposited more than $50,000 into a bank account for her to pay her legal costs.

Costs are escalating quickly after the mother briefed a senior Melbourne QC, Noel Ackman, to appear in a motion to have the judge stay his orders.

The mother said the money was a loan. She denied that it was part of a "fighting fund" amassed by the Brethren to fight Family Court cases.

"It's a system of society of love that you probably don't understand," the mother told the father's counsel, Terry McGuire.

She also admitted to speaking for about 10 minutes to Exclusive Brethren world leader Bruce Hales 10 days after the failed access visit, on January 24.

She described Mr Hales as a "family friend" and denied he had influenced her about the case.

During evidence, the mother laughed when asked if there was a photograph of the children's father in the house.

Asked if she had told him that he became a grandfather late in January, she said: "That's not my responsibility."

"That's extraordinary," Justice Benjamin said. "How sad it was that this house was so poisonous to the father that they could not even have a photograph of the father in their home."

The judge rejected the mother's argument that the children were acting from free will, saying these "were not the views of these children but of the adults who surrounded them".

He said he found the mother, her son and son-in-law evasive, and preferred the evidence of the father.

The mother also gave evidence that if according to her conscience the law of the land conflicted with God's law, she would reject it.

Justice Benjamin had earlier rejected an application by Mr Ackman, QC, for a stay of his orders. Mr Ackman argued that the children were entitled to exercise their free will not to see their father, and that his insistence that he be given access "can hardly be a considered decision of a man who says this is in the best interests of the children".

After losing that argument, Mr Ackman launched a second action, this time asking Justice Benjamin to disqualify himself, on the grounds of bias, from hearing the case brought by the father that the mother had contravened the order. Justice Benjamin refused to disqualify himself.

The judge also refused an application by the mother's other lawyer, Roger Murray, to close the court to The Age.

Posted by Perry at 04:17 PM

Prison terms for fatal exorcism

From L.A. Times Wire Reports

http://www.latimes.com/news/
printedition/asection/la-fg-
briefs20.5feb20,1,5851332.
story?coll=la-news-a_
section&ctrack=1&cset=true

February 20, 2007

A Romanian priest who in 2005 led a days-long exorcism ritual for a young nun that ended with the woman's death was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Maricica Irina Cornici, 23, had been chained to a cross and deprived of food and water.

Cornici believed that she heard the devil talking to her. She was treated for schizophrenia, but when she relapsed, Daniel Petru Corogeanu — a monk who served as the priest for the secluded Holy Trinity convent — and four other nuns tried exorcism.

One nun got eight years in prison and the other three got five years.

Posted by Perry at 04:11 PM

One Mother's Tale: Moon & Her Son

http://www.consortiumnews.com/
2007/021707a.html

By Robert Parry
(Originally published in 1997)

Like many parents, Debbie Diglio was nervous when her only son, John Stacey, went off to college. But John was a stable, high-achieving, all-American young man who seemed the sort who might succeed in staying out of trouble.

So when John left their home in central New Jersey and registered at New York University in 1992, Debbie Diglio, a nurse by profession, hoped for the best. But, then, shortly into his first semester, she said, "he went away one weekend and vanished."

She first got a sense of trouble when she called his NYU room with happy family news. "My sister had a baby and I called to tell John," she recalled, still with a quaver in her voice. "His roommate said he had gone away with a few new friends he had met."

The roommate remembered that the "new friends" were from a group, known by the acronym, CARP, standing for the innocuous title, Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles. After learning that CARP was "a front group" for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, Diglio and her husband, John's step-father, began a frantic search.

"I tried to call the church and they said they had no idea who he was."

The Diglios feared the worst, that John would be drawn into the controversial religious sect that has been accused by critics of "brainwashing" impressionable young people into becoming robotic followers of Moon as a new messiah. "When John did call," Debbie Diglio said, "I knew immediately that he was in trouble."

So began a four-year nightmare for Debbie Diglio. Like thousands of other parents in the past quarter century, she had lost a child to the charismatic South Korean who teaches that his movement is building a theocracy that will rule the world. During those four years, Stacey almost completely severed ties to his family and nearly drove his mother to a nervous breakdown.

Though the number of young Americans drawn to Moon appears to be in sharp decline -- his total U.S. church membership in 1997 was estimated at less than 3,000 although church officials insisted the figure was around 50,000 -- the story of John Stacey was a reminder that Moon's controversial recruiting techniques continued.

The Freshman’s Tale

When I interviewed John Stacey four years after his recruitment at a pizza restaurant near his hometown of Piscataway, N.J., the thin, blonde, young man had an edgy way about him, a look that was both vulnerable and cagey. He'd hold my gaze for a minute and then quickly glance away.

But amid the clatter of plates and piped-in rock music, Stacey seemed relaxed talking about his growing-up years as a prototypical Middle American who came from a Baptist background and was close to his family. He was a high school honor student, and when he left for NYU, he said, "my mother was still making me peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches."

Stacey's life detoured when he encountered CARP members on the street near NYU, at the edge of Manhattan's Greenwich Village. "They gave me a survey, and it turned out everything that I was interested in they were interested in," he chuckled. The recruiters invited him to a lecture which stressed positive themes: God, peace, patriotism.

Upset over a fight with his roommate, Stacey agreed to attend a week-long CARP seminar supposedly on "youth decision-making" at a compound located in Queens, N.Y. "They said it was not a religion," he recalled. "They invited me under false pretenses, away from my reference points to another world, it seemed. ... I went there with the impression that all the people there were students like me."

The "students" who surrounded him reinforced the messages from the speakers, while leaders of the group flattered Stacey and attended to his every need. "The seminar is completely rigged," Stacey told me. The other "students" turned out to be Unification Church members who Stacey later learned were "very well trained" in these recruitment methods.

"They gained my trust before I realized they were not worthy of it," Stacey complained. "They used the same tactics that the Chinese communists used. People don't recognize how dangerous it is because they're using mind-control techniques without prior consent. I didn't suspect that they had designs on me. ... It's like a Moonie factory. They sort of clone people there."

Stacey was not held at the Queens compound by force. Rather, he explained, the recruiters employed more subtle techniques of peer-group pressure and isolation. "When I was at that seven-day seminar, I had no idea my parents were trying to find me," he said. "For three months, I never left that property. ... I had five people patrolling me."

A Very Delicate Time

When Stacey did contact his mother, she had received some counseling herself in the methods of cults and knew that it was "a very delicate time in the first few days of recruitment." Her choices were to "scare him or go along with it. So I tried to scare him with [a story that] my husband had a heart attack."

But Diglio said the Unification Church was savvy to the reactions of desperate parents, too. "They called every hospital," she remembered, and found out that Stacey's step-father had not been admitted for treatment. Diglio saw her son slip farther from her reach.

"It was horrifying," Diglio told me. "I didn't sleep. We didn't eat. I had people come out and speak to our extended family [who wanted to know], how can John be so stupid?"

A year after John joined the church, Diglio said she was allowed to visit him "in a Moonie house. It was horrible. I never had a moment to speak to John alone. It was very creepy, very sad, because there are so many young people there, all under Moon's influence."

She was shocked by the changes in her son. "John was very different, very glazed over, trance-like. Did you ever see 'The Stepford Wives'? It was so emotional to watch your only son to be taken and transformed. I kept praying that he would come to his senses."

Inside the church, after his recruitment, Stacey took part in the exhausting and humiliating routine of the "mobile fundraising teams" that travel by van from town to town selling flowers and other cheap items.

Under pressure to meet quotas and fearing harsh criticism if they came up short, members would work feverishly for long hours, seven days a week. They would live on McDonald hamburgers and other fast food. Tired van drivers rushing the fundraising teams to new locations experienced far more accidents than normal.

Some church members went to extremes, even going out in snow storms, in sub-zero temperatures. "I know people who lived in a van for 15 years," Stacey said. "They're very burnt out, these people. ... Fear and guilt are the driving force."

Hiding the Moon Connection

Stacey asserted that the key to the church's fundraising – like its recruitment – is deception. But church members justify the lies because they are serving a larger good, the ascendance of Moon to a position of world dominance. Stacey said, "there's no such thing as truth," outside of Moon's religious teachings, known as The Divine Principle.

"The Divine Principle justifies murder," Stacey stated matter-of-factly. "If you do it for Reverend Moon, it's good. Good and evil are decided by motivation."

When out selling, the fundraisers hid their links to Moon and presented themselves as students raising money for some worthy cause. Stacey said he broke that rule only once, when going door to door selling wind chimes on an island off the coast of Alaska.

"I told everyone that I was doing this for Reverend Sun Myung Moon," Stacey said. "I didn't make a penny. It was the only time in four years that I was honest."

But with his intelligence, hard work and clean looks, Stacey rose quickly through the church's ranks. He opened a CARP office in Portland, Oregon, and became a Pacific Northwest CARP leader based in Seattle, Washington.
In his capacity as a leader, it was his turn to become the recruiter, targeting vulnerable young people and applying the same deceptive techniques that had been employed on him.

"I convinced people to quit school and leave their families," he acknowledged. "Look, I was a con artist."

The fundraising schemes also grew more sophisticated as the church phased out the "mobile fundraising teams" because of bad publicity.

Instead of roaming from city to city, local chapters sold gift items at mall kiosks before Christmas. But always, Stacey said, there was the deception and the certainty that the end – advancing the cause of Moon's church – justified the means.

Stacey's chapter made $80,000 during the holiday season, he said, by working a bait-and-switch tactic: the kiosk would display a decorative light which looked stunning with a powerful halogen bulb. But after the purchase, the customer was given a boxed lamp which contained a "much cheaper" and dimmer bulb.

Growing Disenchantment

Eventually, according to Stacey, the deception and the deification of Moon ate away at his commitment to the church.

He also grew disturbed watching the painful lives of longtime church members who had joined in the 1970s. Then there were gaudy promises of the church's worldwide ascendance and the evolution of church members into perfect beings. Instead, the church has shrunk and none of the members has attained the promised perfection.

"Twenty years later the church is getting smaller, it seems," Stacey told me. "I see the church as very miserable people. ... There's a lot of suffering among the older members."

The rewards, both spiritual and worldly, have gone disproportionately to Moon and his family, Stacey observed. "Reverend Moon is perfect and his wife is perfect, his family is supposed to be perfect. But according to church records, no one [else] had reached perfection."

Through the four years, Stacey had periodic contact with his family. But he hid signs of his doubts. In September 1996, he flew to New Jersey for his mother's birthday and stayed the weekend. Some family members went out to lunch together. Stacey found himself defending Moon.

"When he got back [to the Pacific Northwest]," Debbie Diglio recalled, "he wrote a nasty letter. He was visibly upset that we were laughing at Moon."

Yet privately, Stacey's faith in Moon was breaking down. "When I looked at the leaders, they were all con artists," Stacey concluded. "Reverend Moon is training a race of very charming manipulators. ... He's creating almost an elite force of people who are very charming but very dangerous."

Stacey also was offended by Moon's pretensions that he was superior to Jesus and by Moon's attacks on Americans as "Satanic" because of their belief in individualism.

"I left because it was wrong," Stacey told me. "I was causing my family way too much pain. ... My mother was about institutionalized. They'd cry and cry and cry and beg me to come home."

Then, in January 1997, Stacey called his mother and announced that he was flying to New York. They met in Newark where she works. Only then did he tell her that he was quitting the Unification Church.

"I almost died," Diglio said, "I could not believe it. I thanked God. I was so happy and so frightened at the same time. We just huddled as a family and cried our eyes out. It was so emotional. For four years, it was an all-time low. The distress was so much. I wasn't dealing at all with life. I thought I was losing my mind. I'd wake up at night and cry hysterically."

When I talked with Diglio several months after Stacey's return home, his mother spoke with none of that passion. Her voice sounded drained, the tone of a parent who is relieved that an ordeal with a child is over but is sorry that the ordeal ever happened.

Though glad that her son had returned, Diglio no longer sees Stacey as the same bright-eyed young man who left for college.

The four-year stint with the Unification Church had changed his mannerisms. Though she was hopeful that he would get his life back together – he had decided to attend Rutgers – she was often reminded of the four lost years.

His behavior is still a "little Moonie," Diglio said. "He can't directly look you in the eye."

******************************************************************
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek.

Posted by Perry at 04:05 PM

Cult leader Rael denied residence in Switzerland

AFP
http://www.breitbart.com/
news/2007/02/19/
070219183652.zb2e8qnp.html

Feb 19, 2007

Cult leader Rael, who shot to media prominence in 2002 by claiming to have cloned a human being, has been denied residence in Switzerland for fear of endangering public morals, authorities said.

Rael, a French citizen whose real name is Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon, had sought residence in the Canton Valais in the southwest of Switzerland, where he wished to carry out "commercial activities" in a local vintners.

The Valais authorities refused his application because many of his views are at odds with the Swiss constitution, notably his approach to children and sexuality.

Rael preaches a doctrine of "complete sexual liberty" and believes parents should show their children how to obtain sexual pleasure, "which by its nature can lead to sexual deviance with under-age children," the authorities said in a statement.

Human cloning is also legally forbidden in Switzerland.

Rael, who claims to have some 50,000 followers around in the world, said in a brief statement he was considering an appeal at a European level.

Posted by Perry at 04:00 PM

February 19, 2007

Raël jugé indésirable

http://www2.canoe.com/infos/
societe/archives/2007/02/
20070219-123340.html

Associated Press (AP)

19/02/2007

Claude Vorilhon, alias Raël, ne pourra pas s'établir dans le village suisse de Miège. Le canton du Valais a rejeté la demande d'autorisation de séjour du gourou des Raéliens. Les autorités invoquent des motifs liés à l'ordre public et à la protection de la morale. Le Français se dit prêt à aller jusqu'à Strasbourg pour contester cette décision.

Raël voulait séjourner quelques mois par année à Miège, village d'un millier d'habitants, où habitent une quinzaine de Raéliens, a expliqué aujourd'hui à l'AP Allan Tschopp, un des responsables du mouvement en Suisse. Claude Vorilhon, 61 ans, qui n'a pas de domicile fixe annoncé, réside occasionnellement chez un de ses adeptes dans la commune valaisanne. Il a aussi été engagé par une cave viticole pour promouvoir ses vins à l'étranger. Le propriétaire de «la cave du Verseau» a présenté en octobre dernier une demande d'autorisation de séjour en sa faveur.

Les autorités valaisannes la lui ont refusée. «Il nous est apparu que des motifs d'ordre public justifiaient un refus», a souligné Françoise Gianadda, responsable du Service de l'état civil et des étrangers, précisant que la commune de Miège partageait également ces préoccupations.

Les autorités soulignent que l'idéologie de Claude Vorilhon est contraire à la Constitution fédérale. Dans ses écrits, Raël prône l'avènement de la géniocratie, modèle politique basé sur le coefficient intellectuel des individus. Il défend aussi la liberté sexuelle absolue et l'éducation sexuelle pratique des enfants par leurs parents, une doctrine de nature à provoquer des dérives sexuelles à l'égard des mineurs. Il préconise enfin le clonage humain, interdit en Suisse.

La décision des autorités valaisannes ne semble toutefois pas décourager Claude Vorilhon qui s'est dit prêt, dans un communiqué diffusé aujourd'hui, à la contester jusque devant la Cour européenne des droits de l'Homme à Strasbourg. Il a transmis le dossier à son avocat pour faire respecter les accords de Schengen et faire condamner la Suisse.

D'abord chanteur, puis chroniqueur sportif et coureur automobile, le Français Claude Vorilhon a créé le mouvement raélien dans les années 1970. Il se déclare le dernier prophète, le berger des bergers, demi-frère de Jésus. Il dit être venu sur Terre pour diffuser le message des Elohims, des extraterrestres, préparer leur arrivée sur notre planète et sauver l'humanité.

Posted by Perry at 04:58 PM

February 18, 2007

Georgia couple guilty of murdering son, 8

The Tennessean

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070217/
NEWS06/702170339/1023/NEWS

By DANIEL YEE
Associated Press
and ANITA WADHWANI
Tennessean staff writer

Saturday, 02/17/07

MARIETTA, Ga. — Former members of a Brentwood-based church said they hoped Friday's conviction of Georgia couple in the death of their 8-year-old son would prompt the church and its followers to re-examine their child discipline teachings.

Joseph and Sonya Smith were found guilty of one count each of felony murder and involuntary manslaughter. They were remote members of Remnant Fellowship Church, which has Web-based outposts across the nation and was funding the couple's defense.

The jury also convicted them of four counts of cruelty to children, three counts of aggravated assault, one count of reckless conduct and one count of false imprisonment in the death of their son Josef in 2003.

"I think (the Smiths) are the sacrificial lamb," said Oklahoma mother Susan Warren, who joined a support group for former members after her grown daughter, Cary, left home and joined the church. "Maybe it will shock some people in the church. Maybe things will change. They're playing with people's lives when they discipline that way."

The fellowship grew out of church leader Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down Workshop, a Christian diet program she created in 1986.

"The Smiths are innocent and so we will appeal this and fight for justice for the Smith family. This case is not over," said a statement released on behalf of Shamblin and Remnant Fellowship Church members.

Defense attorney Manubir Singh Arora said he spoke briefly with the Smiths before they were taken into custody.

"I think it's going to take them a while to let it all soak in. I think they're a little stunned.

"I'm incredibly disappointed," Arora said. "I never in my wildest dreams expected to lose on any of the four murder counts."

Case spotlighted church

The church advocates strict discipline for children, including corporal punishment. Shamblin told The Tennessean earlier this month that she believed the Smiths were innocent and that media coverage since their arrest has distorted the church's teachings on child discipline.

Investigators in the case raided the Weigh Down program's Franklin headquarters in 2004. No one else, however, was charged in connection with the boy's death. Officers testified that they never established a solid link between the church and the boy's death.

Some former members who have called the church a "cult" watched trial coverage closely .

"My prayer was that the truth came out and I hope the truth did come out," former member Steve Miozzi said Friday.

In a Marietta, Ga. courtroom Friday morning, the Smiths were motionless as Cobb County Deputy Clerk Tricia Crawford read the verdicts, although Sonya Smith closed her eyes after the jury found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter and murder.

The crowd in the courtroom was silent after Judge James Bodiford threatened to respond to any outbursts with 20 days in the county jail.

The Smiths were found not guilty of additional, separate counts of murder, felony murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct, false imprisonment and cruelty to children. Sentencing is March 27.

"I'm pleased with the verdict. I'm pleased these two defendants will not get away with this brutal abuse," prosecutor Eleanor Dixon said.

Several members of the church attended the court session but declined to comment.

Cause of death disputed

Prosecutors charged that Josef Smith was beaten, locked inside a wooden box and forced to stay in a closet for hours at a time before he died in October 2003.

Defense attorneys contended that Josef did not die from the injuries, and the county medical examiner failed to perform crucial tests that would have found the actual cause of his death.

A police witness said Josef Smith's father told officers his 8-year-old son frequently needed discipline because the child carved death threats on the walls, keeping the family awake at night, and claimed he was a foot soldier for the devil.

But prosecutors said the parents met that behavior with a tragic overreaction that led to the boy's death, his body full of bruises and other injuries, after an October 2003 prayer session.

The verdict came on what would have been Josef Smith's 12th birthday.

Adam Brooks, a Philadelphia psychologist who attended the church for several months with his wife before leaving and creating a support group for former members, said he watched the trial closely.

"It's a sad outcome, regardless of which side of the fence one is on regarding Remnant Fellowship, just to realize fundamentally what this is really about is the life of one little boy," he said.

Posted by Perry at 02:05 PM

Sect man jailed for sex abuse of girl

The Sydney Morning Herald

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/
sect-man-jailed-for-sex-abuse-of-
girl/2007/02/16/1171405446758.html

David Marr and Geesche Jacobsen

February 17, 2007

THE sentencing of Lindsay Ronald Jensen yesterday for abusing a young girl in Albury brings almost to an end a saga of squalor and betrayal that has embroiled the religious sect the Exclusive Brethren and its leadership for four years.

Jensen, 49, an imposing man nearly two metres tall, was sentenced to five years' jail on four counts of indecent assault and one of sexual intercourse without consent. Judge Gay Murrell found the offences occurred when Jensen was in a position of trust and responsible for the girl's welfare. She set a non-parole period of three years.

The girl was nine when the assaults took place in 2002. Her parents were estranged, and according to the iron rules of the Brethren she had little contact with her father. But she was often in close contact that year with Jensen, a leading member of the Brethren in the city.

Judge Murrell found the relationship between the child and her abuser "was brought about because of membership of the church". But the sect did nothing effective when the child complained about Jensen in early 2003. Some months later the child was quizzed by two senior women in the Albury congregation, but still no action was taken.

The Brethren's new spokesman, Tony McCorkell, told the Herald that although the women were not "overly convinced" by the accusations, local sect leaders tried to dissuade Jensen from attending board meetings at the Brethren school because they thought him "loose-moralled" and feared "maybe this could be true".

Decisive action was finally taken by non-Brethren teachers at the sect's school when Jensen's presence there one day in mid-August 2003 provoked another young girl to storm out calling: "You touched me up. I'm not going to be here at the school while you're here." Mr McCorkell said teachers reported the incident to the NSW Department of Community Services.

Mr McCorkell said it was only at this point that the world leader of the church, Bruce Hales - a Sydney businessman known to the faithful as the Elect Vessel and the Man of God - learnt what was happening in Albury. "I can confirm - and I believe without a shadow of a doubt - Bruce Hales didn't even know about the situation, according to him, until it had already been reported to DOCS."

Jensen was excluded from the day-to-day life of the church, but his exile lasted only four months. "There is a whole heap of bitching and moaning and fighting and carrying on in Albury church," Mr McCorkell said. "Jensen's wife is running around saying to people 'he's been excommunicated and he hasn't even been arrested yet. This is outrageous. This is slanderous' … So there's a lot of pressure on the church to restore him back into the church. So that's what happens."

The young girl went to Albury police the next day. Jensen was expelled from the cult after his arrest.

The Brethren are in the process of expelling his wife, Jenny, and all his children. Mrs Jensen told the District Court yesterday that she had been shunned by the sect.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Brethren extended their sympathy to the victim and her family. "The church shares the community's revulsion of sexual abuse and seeks to do whatever it can to prevent it from occurring and to ensure if further instances occur they are reported to the authorities without delay."

Posted by Perry at 02:01 PM

Jury Sees Home Videos In Murder Trial

WTVF - Nashville
http://www.newschannel5.com/
Global/story.asp?S=6096598

Feb 16, 2007

The jury in the trial of two church members continued deliberating Thursday in Georgia. Sonia and Joseph Smith worship over the internet with the Remnant Fellowship Church in Brentwood.

The jury came back at 8:30 a.m. Georgia time to deliberate the fate of the parents who are accused of killing their 8-year-old son.

One of the crimes the state of Georgia has charged the Smith's with is using glue sticks to punish Josef. It's a form of punishment they learned at Remnant Fellowship Church.

Four of the 14 counts the Smith's face are for aggravated assault and cruelty to children. Two of them specifically pertain to the glue sticks and others to unknown objects.

The jury wanted to know if the glue sticks could be part of all four counts, but the judge could not be much of a help.

"It is the responsibility of the jury to determine the facts of the case from all the evidence presented, so my suggestion is to say legally I am unable to comment on your question," Judge James Bodiford said.

The jury did have a second question, but it was more of a technical question that the judge didn't have a problem helping them with. Part of the evidence the jury is considering is video evidence of young Josef, what the defense calls a much happier time.

The defense team gave us a look at the videotape and the state claimed that the Smith's son was chronically abused. In video of Josef at church camp from August of 2003, they argued the boy was fun-loving and having a good time.

Defense witnesses at that church camp said they never saw or suspected abuse. In another video Easter of 2003, the entire family was in Williamson County getting baptized in a ceremony.

His mom and dad are in the back and his brother is right there to the right.

The defense said there no signs of abuse. The prosecution came back to say no one at the church camp, or the baptism saw Josef with his shirt off and they would not have a chance to see the signs of abuse. They said he was having a good time at church camp because he was away from the abusive parents.

The jury will be back at 7:30 Friday morning and planned on working through lunch.

The judge called it a day around 5:00 Georgia time.

The jury in this trial is made up of 10 women and four men.

Two alternates are now sitting in on the deliberation process.

Posted by Perry at 01:58 PM

February 15, 2007

Remnant Church Members' Fate In Jury's Hands

WKRN Nashville Tennessee

http://wkrn.com/nashville/news/
remnant-church-members-fate-
in-jurys-hands/77685.htm

February 14, 2007

The case of a Georgia couple accused of murdering their eight-year-old son is now in the hands of jury.

The murder trial is being closely followed in Middle Tennessee as the couple charged, Joseph and Sonya Smith, are members of the Brentwood-based Remnant Fellowship Church.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the jury adjourned for the day, after a few hours of deliberating.

In closing arguments Wednesday morning, Prosecutor Eleanor Dixon stated her case against the Smiths, simply that pictures showing bruises and marks on Josef’s body are just what they seem, child abuse. She said, "That's what people who kill a child, their own flesh and blood look like."

She reenacted how the prosecution believes the Smith's locked Josef in a wooden box telling them how the marks on his skin were the results of beatings.

The courtroom was packed with Smith sympathizers, members of the Brentwood-based Remnant Fellowship Church, that believe in corporal punishment.

The Smith’s lawyer said their son died from a skin infection telling jurors the prosecution's pictures are not what they seem. Defense attorney Manny Arora said, “You have to look past the surface, in order to come up with a just verdict.”

Arora reminded jurors that even theprosecution's experts disagreed about the exact cause of death, telling jurors that if Smith did abuse his child, it was battery, not murder.

“I’m sorry his son died but they didn't do it. They just didn't,” he said.

As the Smiths wept, the prosecution lit a birthday cake with eight candles, reminding jurors of the birthdays Josef will never have.

The Brentwood-based Remnant Fellowship Church is picking up the legal fees for Joseph and Sonya Smith.

The church said it condones discipline, not abuse and maintains the Smith's are innocent. No one else involved with the church is charged in this case.

There is no word on how long the jury will deliberate.

Posted by Perry at 04:53 PM

Exclusive Brethren thanked minister over schools

The Age - Australia

http://www.theage.com.au/news/
national/sect-thanked-minister-
over-schools/2007/02/14/
1171405295312.html

Michael Bachelard
February 15, 2007

MORE evidence has emerged of the power of the Exclusive Brethren's lobbying in Canberra, with the sect's world leader giving thanks for the "unexpected recognition" from former federal education minister Brendan Nelson.

The Age has obtained a 2004 passage of Brethren "ministry" — transcribed words of Sydney-based world leader Bruce D. Hales and other sect figures — in which they discuss their schools.

"(The schools were) set up to deliver the young people from the world," Mr Hales told followers on July 24, 2004.

"We don't want to go back to it, we don't want to be stupid enough to go back to the world, otherwise the Lord might take away our liberties, might take away what the Government has given us. The Government is very favourable; been favourable to us this week, hasn't it, Mr David?"

Another senior Brethren man, David Stewart, replies: "Yes, very clearly. … Very ready support from the Minister for Education."

Mr Hales: "Yes, well, we need to be thankful for it. You get the unexpected recognition of what the saints (the Brethren) represent. You don't expect it, and then they give it to you, they're compelled to give it to you."

Mr Hales' words make it clear that Brethren lobbyists, including Mr Stewart, had met then education minister Dr Nelson in the preceding days.

The Education Department has confirmed that, during 2004, Dr Nelson had representations from the Brethren, and agreed to give them an exemption from testing the computer literacy of year 6 and year 10 students.

That year, computer literacy was made a condition of Federal Government funding of private schools, but at the time the Brethren shunned computers, believing them to be instruments of the devil.

Brethren spokesman Tony McCorkell said yesterday that the ministry reference merely recognised the responsive hearing given to the delegation by Dr Nelson at the 2004 meeting.

He said the Brethren's concern at the time had been that paperwork associated with its private schools would need to be lodged with the department electronically. Dr Nelson assured them they could still lodge returns on paper.

Brethren are now allowed to use computers on a restricted basis.

Dr Nelson did not respond to queries yesterday.

The Brethren received $6.6 million in federal school funding in 2005.

Meanwhile, a Brethren elder, Phillip McNaughton, has suggested on Sydney radio that the sect is relaxing its insistence that those who have left the sect have no contact with their families.

"I would have thought they would be able to speak to them," he said.

But Ron Fawkes, a former Australian leader of the sect, who has not seen any of his six children for 22 years, said Mr McNaughton was being "very, very casual with the truth".

"Parents right around the world haven't been able to see their families," he said.

Posted by Perry at 04:49 PM

SNAP offers help to possible victims, witnesses

THE-BEE - Wisconsin

http://www.phillipswi.com/bee/
index.php?sect_rank=
1&story_id=206336

Patti Wenzel, patti.wenzel@mx3.com

February 14, 2007

David Schauer, a victim of clergy abuse while a child in Green Bay, led a small group of SNAP members while they left informational leaflets with parishioners or on their cars during Sunday mass at St. Therese of Lisieux in Phillips.

“We are in Phillips to reach out to any possible victims and/or witnesses to the misconduct of this priest,” Schauer said. “We want to remove the feeling of isolation that victims often feel.”

Living with isolation

Schauer said he can relate to the isolation victims of clergy abuse live with.

“I’m a survivor. I was abused by my priest in 1988 and came forward in 1990 after my mom took me to family therapy after noticing some changes in my behavior,” Schauer said.

“A police report was filed, but the (Brown County) district attorney didn’t want to move forward with it. But in 2003 the priest was convicted of child porn charges in Milwaukee and admitted to abusing me and others. That’s when I found out the Green Bay diocese lied to me. They told me he would never be a priest again, so we never said anything.

“When I found out, I contacted Jeff Anderson and filed a lawsuit against the church.”

Anderson is a Minneapolis attorney who has represented numerous alleged victims in Wisconsin. Schauer’s lawsuit against the Green Bay diocese is currently being heard in the Taylor County Circuit Court.

The priest who abused Schauer and the others is currently serving 32 years in prison.

Schauer said going to a SNAP conference changed his life.

“If was the first time I felt that I wasn’t alone,” he said. “I knew there were others. I had heard about the things happening in Boston, but I put it out of my mind.”

Peter Isely, Midwest coordinator for SNAP, said any victims or witnesses to alleged actions by Fitzmaurice in Wisconsin may be able to seek redress in the criminal courts due to a quirk in state law.

“Its quite likely that anyone abused in Wisconsin could still seek criminal charges since the statute of limitations stops running when the assailant leaves the state,” Isely said.

Fitzmaurice retired from Our Lady of the North in 1999 and returned to St. Procopius Abbey. He currently resides in a northern Illinois nursing home.

Church, Benedictine respond

While SNAP members were moved to come to Phillips because of their belief that allegations against Fitzmaurice in Chicago could possibly mean there may be other victims in Wisconsin, the Catholic Diocese of Superior maintains its belief in Fitzmaurice’s innocence.

In a statement provided to THE-BEE by Fr. Gerald Hagen of St. Therese, the diocese asks that “parishioners and the public be aware that no complaints of any kind were received either during Fr. Fitzmaurice’s tenure in Phillips or since. Any statement that complaints were received by any Diocesan official against Fr. Fitzmaurice are denied.”

Included in Hagen’s document were statements from St. Procopius Abbey concerning the charges against Fitzmaurice and themselves.

“The suit...makes charges about events that were alleged to have occurred more than 30 years ago. It’s critical for people to know that until these allegations were brought forth, no complaints of any kind have been received either during the time these acts were alleged to have taken place or in the subsequent 30+ years, and Fr. Terrance Fitzmaurice emphatically denies the allegations.”

“When the Abbey first heard of these charges, it immediately undertook a full investigation using outside counsel and investigators. The investigation involved interviews of dozens of people from within the Order, those associated with the parish at the time in question and also many other people from the community.”

“To date and after hundreds of hours of interviews and the review of all written records, we have not been able to find one independent person or independent piece of evidence that confirms these claims against the Order.”

The Order’s attorney, Matthew Walsh, II reiterated the previous statement in a telephone interview Feb. 9 and added his own assessment of the federal lawsuit and the plaintiff’s attorney, Phillip Aaron, in a letter to THE-BEE.

“My client chose to avoid significant legal costs by agreeing to a financial settlement with three of Phillip Aaron’s clients, but with the strictest of understanding that my client is innocent of the charges,” he wrote.

“After the settlements, Mr. Aaron continued to aggressively market for clients and again approached the Abbey with new demands for financial payment. Only after extending its investigation and finding nothing further, the Abbey notified Mr. Aaron that independent investigators could not substantiate any of his allegations and so my client could not continue to discuss a financial settlement.”

Walsh adds that when those discussions ended, Aaron retaliated by calling a press conference and filing the federal lawsuit charging racketeering, fiduciary fraud and many other offenses.

Attorneys for both sides are scheduled to appear at a status hearing in Chicago on March 22.

Posted by Perry at 04:31 PM

February 14, 2007

Couple charged in son's beating death won't take stand

The Tennessean

http://www.tennessean.com/
apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=2007702140424

February 14, 2007

MARIETTA, Ga. — A couple accused in the beating death of their 8-year-old declined to testify in their own defense Tuesday, after a judge strongly advised them not to.

Joseph and Sonya Smith of Mableton face 14 charges that include murder, aggravated assault, cruelty to children and false imprisonment in their son Josef's October 2003 death.

Closing arguments are scheduled for this morning.

The couple had planned to testify as late as Tuesday afternoon, Atlanta's WXIA-TV reported, against the advice of defense attorney Manny Arora.

Arora told Judge James Bodiford while the jury was out of the courtroom that he was trying to dissuade his clients from taking the stand. Bodiford agreed and told the Smiths what they could expect from the prosecutor, Senior Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Dixon.

"If you choose to testify, there is, at least, one danger," Bodiford said. "Experienced counsel is ready to pounce," he said.

"Ms. Dixon is sitting there ready to tear you from limb to limb."

Bodiford gave an example of a difficult question the couple could expect: "Didn't, in fact, you admit to the police officer that you used a glue stick to hit young Josef? Isn't it true?"

The Smiths later told the judge they would not testify, the television station reported.

The Smiths are members of the Brentwood, Tenn.-based Remnant Fellowship Church, which grew out of church leader Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down Workshop, a Christian diet program she created in 1986.

Prosecutors say Josef Smith was beaten by his parents, locked inside a wooden box and forced to stay in a closet for hours at a time before he died.

Posted by Perry at 06:12 PM

Girl 'told sex with mystic was God's will'

APP
http://www.news.com.au/story/
0,23599,21226167-2,00.html

By Lisa Allan

February 14, 2007

A SELF-proclaimed prophet who claimed to receive messages from the Virgin Mary began a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old follower he selected to be one of his "queens", a Sydney court has heard.

William Kamm, also known as Little Pebble, is accused of having sex with the girl when she was living with her family in a religious community he established at Cambewarra, near Nowra, on the New South Wales south coast.

Mr Kamm created the community, the Order of Saint Charbel, in the late 1980s and planned to take 12 queens and 72 princesses who would all conceive his children, the NSW District Court heard today.

Followers would meet on the 13th day of every month when Mr Kamm would receive messages from the Virgin Mary, Crown Prosecutor Sara Bowers said.

Ms Bowers said Mr Kamm's teachings were central to the case against him.

"He thought the world was about to come to an end but that he and his community would survive and that through the accused a new race of people would come into being," she said.

In a letter he wrote in 1994, Mr Kamm claimed the law of God was suspended for him in regard to marriage, Ms Bowers said.

"I am permitted to have intercourse with all princesses without violating the law," she said, citing the letter.

"All will conceive their children from me, even the married ones, because I carry the holy seed."

The victim, who began living in the community when she was 12, was approached by Mr Kamm at the age of 13 to become a princess and eventually a queen, the court heard.

In July 1994, Mr Kamm took the girl, then 14, to a motel at Figtree, near Wollongong, and attempted to coax her into having sex with him, the court heard.

After she refused he said he was very disappointed and told her it was "God's will," Ms Bowers said.

Later that month he again took the girl to the motel where he had sexual intercourse with her, the court heard.

He also had sexual intercourse with her at his home in the Cambewarra community in January 1995 when she was 15, the court heard.

Mr Kamm, 56, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 under his authority and one count of committing an act of indecency.

Acting for Mr Kamm, Greg Stanton told the jury of eight men and four women that although they may findMr Kamm's claim he was a "modern day prophet" peculiar, they should not judge him on his beliefs.

Mr Stanton said the alleged victim had taken her story to two media outlets before going to police in 2002.

He said the woman had been paid for her story by the Seven Network's Today Tonight.

"I think it's called cashbook journalism," he said.

Mr Stanton said the woman's story also contained inconsistencies regarding when the alleged sexual conduct began.

The trial before Justice Ronald Solomon resumes tomorrow.

Posted by Perry at 05:30 PM

Cult leader faces child sex charges

The Australian

http://www.theaustralian.news.
com.au/story/0,20867,21225324-
1702,00.html

February 14, 2007

THE creator of a south coast religious community claimed to receive messages from the Virgin Mary and believed a new race of people would be created through him, a Sydney court has heard.

William Kamm, 56, also known as the Little Pebble, is facing trial on five counts of sexual intercourse with a person under 16 under his authority and one count of committing an act of indecency.

The alleged offences occurred between 1994 and 1995 when the alleged victim was 14 and 15, the New South Wales District Court heard today.

At the time, the alleged victim lived with her family at the Order of Saint Charbel, a religious community established by Mr Kamm in the 1980s at Cambewarra, near Nowra on the NSW south coast, Crown Prosecutor Sara Bowers told the court.

Mr Kamm told his followers at the fenced off community he would take 12 queens and 72 princess, all of whom would conceive his children "because he carried the holy seed", Ms Bowers said.

She said Mr Kamm's teachings at the community were of central importance to the case against him.

"The accused claimed that he was receiving messages from the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ," she said.

"He thought the world was about to come to an end but that he and his community would survive and that through the accused a new race of people would come into being."

Acting for Mr Kamm, Greg Stanton told the jury of eight men and four women his client should not be judged on his religious beliefs.

The trial, before Justice Ronald Solomon, resumes tomorrow.

Posted by Perry at 05:25 PM

The Future is in Our Past

The Beacon - Gander, Newfoundland

http://www.ganderbeacon.ca/
index.cfm?iid=2287&sid=18657

The truth shall set you free?

February 12, 2007

by Audrey Manning

The first case of sextuplets born in Canada occurred in Vancouver on Jan. 6 to Jehovah’s Witness parents.

The Vancouver babies were premature and needed blood transfusions to cope with low volumes of blood. Jehovah's Witnesses believe the Bible says they should abstain from blood (Acts 21:25) and therefore refuse blood transfusions for themselves and their children.

The care of the babies presents an ethical dilemma for the doctors. Medical authorities do not generally have the authority to overrule the parents’ wishes. However, when a child is in danger of dying, the doctors can lodge a complaint with government authorities that can get a court order to enforce treatment.

Religious authorities cite the special relationship between parent and child as something to be fostered and protected because it is the fundamental elemental upon which society and culture is constructed. The big question is: should the state intervene to save the life of a child?

Here we have a conundrum. The same religious authorities who would champion the rights of the unborn and turn every stone to prevent a woman’s right to choose will not go out on a limb for the born, preferring to leave the matter to the courts.

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada cites three main principles at stake — the rights of parents, respect for religious beliefs and protection of children. In the unborn debate, protection of the unborn is paramount. After the child is born, protection comes after parental and religious rights.

There is an ethical assumption parents should have care and custody of their children because parents love their children and strive to help them to become honourable human beings. This assumption does not stand up to scrutiny. If parents are abusing children, society intervenes to protect the children. The question is: who needs protection more than a child who will die if medical treatment is not administered?

The argument is reduced to: are children individuals with human rights? It seems the only way to protect all children is to make the ethical assumption parents do not own their children. Parents are guardians charged with the task of helping their children to grow physically and emotionally. Life-and-death decisions regarding children should not take into consideration the religious beliefs of the parents.

Parents have rights, but they are not absolute. Outside religious rules, parents can’t make decisions that have the potential to harm their children. Children are regularly taken away from their parents when they’re deemed to be at risk. Thus, while society may accept parents are free to become martyrs, they are not free, in indistinguishable circumstances, to make martyrs of their children.

That parental rights do not give parents life and death authority over their children is especially relevant in the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is because their teachings have changed radically, over the years, with regard to medical treatment.

As well as whole blood, the Watchtower Society used to prohibit taking into the body any of the components that make up whole blood. Over time, while sticking to the banning of whole blood, they have gradually permitted the use of virtually all the components that make up whole blood.

They first sanctioned globulin, then the clotting factors, plasma proteins and finally hemoglobin in June 2000. According to the Watchtower, June 15, 2000, Questions From Readers, essentially every component or fraction derived from whole blood and its primary components are allowed in medical treatment.

Religious authorities often view new technologies with suspicion. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s many religious communities objected to vaccinations. Vaccinations were denounced as harmful and morally wrong. Jehovah’s Witnesses saw vaccination as a direct violation of the everlasting covenant that God made with Noah after the flood (the Golden Age, precursor to the Awake, Feb. 4, 1931).

Between 1967 and 1980, the Watchtower Society and others held a dim view of organ transplants. Major religions, inlcuding Catholicism, Judaism and Islam, issued warnings against transplants. Some religions objected because the procedure involved cutting an organ from a living body. Others, like the Witnesses, viewed transplants as an extension of cannibalism (the Watchtower, Nov. 15, 1967).

In 1980, the Watchtower Society made transplants a matter for personal decision, accepting the procedure as one that saves lives. Until the rules were relaxed, loyal Witnesses chose blindness rather than a corneal transplant and death rather than a kidney transplant.

Some branches of the Jewish and Muslim faiths continue to voice concerns over the rapid advance of medical research. However, religious thinkers have been forced to consider scientific technology when dealing with theological issues. Questions relating to stem-cell research, fertility, contraception and abortion remain the focus of religious debates.

There is no doubt society is conflicted over religious truths. Yet, even the most dogmatic views evolve. Is it reasonable to place the lives of children into this mix of personal beliefs and truths? Is it reasonable to give parents, like the parents of the sextuplets, the power of life and death over their children when their decisions are based on the whim of religious interpretation, which change over time?

Posted by Perry at 05:17 PM

February 13, 2007

A priest has been charged with sexual abuse

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/
news/publish/article_8843.shtml

By m.p.
08 Feb 2007, 22:01

The Archbishopric of Granada has temporarily removed public duties from a semi-retired priest in La Zubia who is accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy.

They added in the press release informing of their decision that the accusations have not been proved, and ask for respect for the presumption of innocence.

The 72 year old priest, who has not been named, was arrested on Monday following an official complaint by the 14 year old boy’s parents. He has now been released with charges, and must report back to the courts when called to do so.

Posted by Perry at 05:58 PM

Serbian priest sentenced to jail for sexual abuse of boys

International Herald Tribune

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/
2007/02/09/europe/EU-GEN-
Serbia-Pedophile-Priest.php

The Associated Press

February 9, 2007

BELGRADE, Serbia: A Serbian Orthodox Church priest has been jailed for a year after being convicted of sexually abusing boys in 2001, a court announced Friday.

Jovan Misic, also known by his church name Ilarion and the former abbot of the Hopovo monastery in the northern Vojvodina province, was found guilty of "lewd behavior and sexual abuse" of several underage boys in monastery grounds, the court said.

The boys were aged between seven and eleven years old.

No furthers details were revealed because of the need to protect the victims and their families.

There was no immediate comment from Misic or his lawyer.

The District Court in Novi Sad, 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Belgrade, first ruled in the case in October last year, finding Misic guilty and sentencing him to 10 months in prison.

The court confirmed the verdict on appeal and increased the prison term to 12 months.

Posted by Perry at 05:55 PM

Documents Show Church Knew About Abuse

TMJ4 - TV Milwaukee

http://www.todaystmj4.com/
news/local/5798026.html

February 13, 2007

Charles Benson

MILWAUKEE - Stunning new details in secret court documents tell a chilling story of a local priest who was allowed to molest young boys again and again.

The documents suggest Catholic Church leaders in Milwaukee tried to cover up Father Siegfried Widera's shameful past. They detail an alleged pattern of sexual abuse and how the church failed to protect other children from Widera.

By all accounts, Fr. Siegfried Widera was a pedophile priest. But you will never hear church leaders use that term in court documents. A few years ago, Widera's alleged victims told us they still struggle with what happened and why.

"How can someone just slip through the system like that?" asked Eric Paino, an alleged victim.

"He's a coward and a criminal and someday he's going to be held accountable for it," said another alleged victim, Chris Huicochea.

The documents show the church first learned about Widera's sexual abuse in 1973 when Widera was convicted of molesting a young boy. He was working at Saint Mary's in Port Washington. He was put on probation, while the church paid for him to get counseling.

From there, Widera was transferred to St. Andrew Parish in Delavan. Court records indicate no one was told of his past. In fact, church leaders received glowing letters from parishioners.

"He is wonderful with young children," wrote one mom.

"The children adore him," gushed another.

But those letters to church leaders, who knew of Widera's past, did not set off any alarm bells. However, they would come back to haunt parents years later when Widera was accused again of molesting boys in Delavan.

Confidential church records suggest they wanted to "try to keep on lid on the thing..." and encouraged a victim's mother "not to act with police."

Church leaders also knew of another incident where two women found Fr. Widera performing a sex act in the sacristy with two boys.

Widera then moved to Orange County, Calif., with the blessing of Milwaukee church leaders. In fact, Milwaukee Archbishop William Cousins sent a letter to the bishop in California praising Widera's work but only hinting at the priest's "moral problem having to do with a boy in a school."

The letter continues, there was "no great risk in allowing this man to return to pastoral work."

While in California, Widera would be transferred from church to church and be accused of molesting again and again.

"To find out this happened to so many other victims - I don't have words for it. It's painful," said Huicochea.

Posted by Perry at 05:47 PM

Lipetsk parents sue sect, demand compensation

ITAR-TASS News Agency - Russia

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/
level2.html?NewsID=
11247138&PageNum=0

February 13, 2007

LIPETSK, February 13 (Itar-Tass) - Parents of the children in Russia's Lipetsk region have sued adepts of the Sovereign Mother of God sect, also known as Bogorodichny Center, demanding a compensation for moral damage, a teacher told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

On Monday, Lipetsk Levoberezhny court ruled on a 800-rouble fine to be paid by Bogorodichny Centerfor for administrative offense, Olga Zolotaryova, a teach of Lipetsk school # 38 said.

Several children were questioned at the hearing. Zolotaryova said the "schoolchildren who suffered from the sect are not only witnesses, but also the injured parties."

"They remain in a state of depression even now, two months after the incident," she said.

In December 2006, the sect adepts, as "mysteries anointed sovereigns of Graal," invited schoolchildren to the exhibition titled Solovki - Second Calvary. Instead of historic narratives, they began a sermon calling for creating "a new true church."

During "the lecture," one of the students felt ill, and the teacher called an ambulance. Another 17 schoolchildren later complained of headache, high temperature and general indisposition.

"The sect should be held responsible for it," Zolotaryova said.

In the course of an investigation, agents from the regional Federal Security Service department ascertained that the Bogorodichny Center missionaries had run this event, under the guise of an educational lesson.

Their organization, according to experts of the Russian Academy of Civil Service under the Russian president, is a destructive religious sect of pseudo Christian nature.

Law-enforcement personnel seized from sect adepts cult literatures, videos, posters, and leaflets during the probe. But the regional prosecutor’s office refused to open a criminal case, ruling that the incident was an administrative offense.

Posted by Perry at 05:42 PM

February 12, 2007

IICD: Humanitarian aid, or money & principles gone awry?

Berkshire Eagle
http://www.berkshireeagle.
com/headlines/ci_5205486

Questions in Williamstown

By Jessica Willis, Berkshire Eagle Staff

February 11

WILLIAMSTOWN — Blink, and you might miss the tip of the iceberg.

The Institute for International Cooperation and Development campus is a collection of small, unassuming buildings scattered on a steep slope off Route 43. Most people don't notice the small sign by the Institute's dirt road. It reads "IICD: develop the world. develop yourself."

The nonprofit, nongovernmental organization has been in Williamstown since 1986, and the school says it offers a rigorous six-month program that trains about 80 students a year to be development instructors in humanitarian aid programs in Africa and Brazil.

But critics say the school is part of a global operation to support the luxurious lifestyle of its charismatic leader, a 67-year-old Danish man named Mogens Amdi Petersen.

Students pay $3,800 to enter the IICD program, and must raise $9,000 more before they can go overseas on their yearlong mission, where they live on a stipend of $150 a month.

To make their goal, the students, who must be at least 18 years old, take fundraising trips to as many as 15 states. And while many Berkshires residents might not know any IICD students, they might
have contributed to their cause by dropping used clothing in one of the dozens of green-and-white boxes scattered throughout the county.

'All sorts of rumors'

Jytte Martinussen, 54, has been IICD's executive director since 2003. At a recent meeting at the school, her smile was both indulgent and guarded; it was the first time a journalist had been invited on campus in her three years there.

"We want the community to know," she said. "A lot of people don't know what IICD is. There's all sorts of rumors. People don't come up here and they don't see the place. There was a nude camp here before us."

Giggles slipped out from the IICD students seated around the table: Alejandro Arredondo, from Phoenix; Beatriz Jaicintho from Sao Paolo, Brazil; Towako Sawada from Ibaraki, Japan; and Francisco Magonagona Pedro, an instructor from Mozambique.

"I just want to teach as much as I can and learn about myself when I'm the outsider (in Africa)," said Arredondo, 18, who was wearing a T-shirt with the words "Knowledge is King" emblazoned on the front.

On this day, the multicultural roundtable group was in good spirits, but IICD has a dark history:

* It was started 21 years ago by a teacher from a Virginia school that was shut down by the Department of Mental Health and Retardation because of deplorable living conditions and the poor treatment of emotionally disturbed students, according to Kenneth Jordan, retired Mathews County (Va.) Sheriff. The teacher, Eric Newman, still serves on the board of directors in Williamstown.

* In 1991, five years after Newman resettled in Massachusetts for unknown reasons — he has not returned phone calls or e-mails to The Eagle — 15 students and former students who traveled to Central America filed complaints with the state attorney general's office charging the institute with misleading advertising.

The participants called the program "a survival training experience" and charged they were allotted so little money that they had to spend most of their time finding the cheapest ways to travel, sleep and eat.

Another complaint about IICD was sent to the attorney general in 2002, according to office spokesperson Erika Gully-Santiago, who declined to elaborate.

* Allegations of underhanded financial practices and a cult-like atmosphere have followed IICD and other nonprofit organizations associated with the school for more than 20 years.

Martinussen, however, said those accusations have nothing to do with the IICD of today.

"Maybe (detractors) talked about IICD 10 years ago," she said. "I can't have knowledge of everything that went on here."

Martinussen denied any illegal activity or misappropriated funds.

"We do our independent audit every year, and we are scrutinized (by the IRS) in the highest. There's no way that anything here is illegal. Otherwise, I wouldn't have a work permit in the U.S," said Martinussen, a Danish citizen.

Roaming the world

Martinussen and Newman are part of the Teachers' Group, or TG, or Tvind, an alliance formed in 1970 by 12 Danes who made up the Traveling Folk High School and roamed the world by bus, dog sled, boat, and thumb.

From 1970-1977, the school visited 135 countries and had 10,000 students, said Martinussen, who joined in 1972. In 1977, the Traveling Folk High School formed Humana People to People, and the teachers started building schools for orphaned refugees in apartheid Rhodesia — now Mozambique.

Today, Humana and its offshoot organizations have programs in Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and South Africa, and, according to Martinussen, Humana is overseeing nearly 200 projects.

Fund contributions to Humana's programs come from IICD and other Tvind-associated U.S. clothing collection programs, including Albany's Planet Aid and the one other IICD school in the United States, in Dowagiac, Mich.

Critics say the funds are channeled to Petersen, not to Humana's programs, but Martinussen defended the clothing operation.

"The surplus from the clothes collections goes to scholarships, running costs at IICD, and donations to humanitarian aid," Martinussen said.

The U.S. Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique, did not respond to The Eagle's inquiries about IICD and its programs.

Indictments in Denmark

The founder of the Teachers' Group is Petersen, who has not talked to the media for nearly three decades, according to Martinussen.

Depending on one's view, Petersen is either a global humanitarian, a humble friend, a cult mastermind, or a luxury-loving thief.

Petersen and seven other top-ranking Tvind associates were indicted in Denmark in 2002 on charges of tax fraud and embezzlement of humanitarian aid funds in excess of $25 million, but seven of the eight — including Petersen — were acquitted of all charges last August after more than 130 days of testimony.

Authorities had claimed Petersen built a lavish empire on the money earned from a variety of sources: pooled income from Tvind members, corporate grants for humanitarian projects, students' tuition, and clothing donations.

Martinussen said the allegations about Petersen were untrue.

"(He) was totally acquitted. There's nothing in the case," said Martinussen, who has been called an "honest, principled and well-meaning person" by Tvindalert.com, an IICD watchdog site. However, a Danish prosecutor has appealed the not-guilty verdict in six of the eight cases — including Petersen's — and Marianna Maver, a former teacher at Newman's school in Virginia, said Petersen's "lower-management people are all in denial."

"They've given everything away to Amdi," Maver said. "Money has sifted up to his life of luxury."

Maver, who now lives near Grand Rapids, Mich., added that she was "pressured" to give up her entry-level teacher's paycheck and return it to the school, and when she refused, she was "openly scorned."

She went on to describe the TG's adherents as "brainwashed" and "thoroughly committed to a life of poverty."

"It's rubbish," Martinussen said. "People think (Petersen) must be at the top and the rest of us are following blind as a cult. There have been a lot of stories that if you're a part of the Teachers' Group, you're not allowed to wear skirts and you must give up all of your personal belongings. The picture was created that Amdi was there and we were his stupid followers. It's not possible to explain to someone who doesn't have an open mind."

Martinussen said she earns "a teacher's salary" — about $36,000 — for being the executive director of IICD-Williamstown.

"But I can save out of that," she said. "Because of the way I live."

Martinussen jokingly opened one of the pockets on her parka and peered inside, indicating that nothing was there.

"When you have people pooling their money together, it gives you freedom," she said. "We have always used our money in a good way."

But when asked about $6 million the Teachers' Group reportedly spent on luxury apartments in Miami Beach in the late 1980s — a move that critics such as Tvindalert uphold as an example of the humanitarian aid organization's callous display of wealth and thinly veiled dishonesty — Martinussen said the purchase was pragmatic and well-timed.

"(It was purchased) before Miami was fashionable," she said. "We needed a place we could meet. We'd been living in the most awkward places, giving first priority to the students. As (the TG members) got older, we didn't have the energy we had. Yes ... we wanted a nice place we could relax."

In the end, she said, the TG sold the apartments, partly because of the criticism the group attracted. She also denied the apartments were solely for Petersen's pleasure.

"Ridiculous," she said. "It was for all of us."

'A tough thing'

Arredondo — the 18-year-old IICD student in Williamstown — and 30 other members of his team will leave in April for Mozambique. But before they go, each must come up with $12,800. The students do so by street canvassing, petitioning their churches or places of worship, and going door to door in neighborhoods.

Martinussen said her school has fundraising permits in 15 states on the East Coast, so students often are away for weeks at a time, trying to generate money so they can get to Africa or Brazil, places where they will teach AIDS/HIV prevention, train primary-school teachers, or establish preschools in the area.

"It's a tough thing," Martinussen said of the fundraising. "If they can raise that money, they can do anything."

Still, the students seem to be up for the challenge.

"This is very necessary," said Jaicintho, the Brazilian student. "We have to be ready to face things that may be difficult. Other schools don't have this schedule."

In December 2005, IICD started a clothing recycling project, and some proceeds went to scholarships for students who couldn't raise the initial $3,800, Martinussen said.

Currently, IICD has 245 clothing boxes in the Berkshire County and Albany areas and collects about 40,000 pounds of used clothing a week, she said. The clothing is sold to a thrift-store owner in Canada. Martinussen estimated IICD earned $200,000 in revenue from those sales in fiscal 2006.

Arredondo took part in the clothing collection project for two months.

"It was an experience in and of itself," he said. "It was challenging, but I felt like I was doing something for myself. I felt like I earned it. It was something that was going to help me get to Africa."

Criticism and praise

IICD's Spartan collection of buildings doesn't contain a whiff of glamour; in fact, Martinussen said, "We are struggling to survive."

The school's tax forms confirm the struggle. In fiscal 2005, IICD reported it operated at a deficit of $181,246 after donating $685,175 to "university-level educational travel programs which directly benefited poverty-level communities in Africa and Latin and South America through construction and miscellaneous projects."

But Maver, the former schoolteacher in Virginia, said she wonders about those numbers.

"They're able to look good on paper," she said. "But where are those humanitarian funds really going? To (what I call) the 'big pot' in Denmark."

For Mary Chaput of Dracut, Mass., IICD is an enigma, but she has placed her trust in the organization and in her 18-year-old daughter, Elyse, an IICD student who is on the biggest journey of her young life.

"Elyse called me this afternoon," Chaput said in a phone conversation in December. "She may be leaving for Mozambique later this week. Her fundraising is done, her lessons are done."

Despite everything she has read — the mountains of rhetoric on IICD's Web site, the damning commentary on Tvindalert — Chaput said she believes the only story is the strength and will of the students.

"These kids are amazing," she said. "I really want you to understand that."

Still, Chaput said she was unnerved by the fundraising aspect of IICD's training.

"That's the part I hate," she said. "The kids are always on the road. It's almost like they're panhandling."

She recalled that when she hosted eight students during a Boston canvassing mission, one of them talked of being grateful to be sleeping in a "safe" home, and not in a car.

"It just seemed grueling and discouraging," Chaput said. But she added that IICD's demanding preparatory program was appealing to Elyse, who is using her IICD experience as credits toward her junior year at Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, because IICD offers "hands on" experience.

"With most of the other aid programs, you stay in a hotel," Chaput said.

That's not the case with IICD's fundraising, which requires a solidarity among the students.

"It's very important that people know it's a demanding program," Martinussen said. "We stay together, we're a community. Some people, when they inquire (about the training), they think that volunteering is something they don't have to pay for."

As for the whisperings by former teachers such as Maver that the students are being indoctrinated into a cult, Chaput said that couldn't be further from the truth.

"They seem to be so independent," she said. "They're definitely not cult material. I've been blessed to know them."

The mood in Africa

By mid-December, Elyse Chaput had reached her destination at a school in Lamego, Mozambique. In e-mails to friends and family, she waxed poetic about the "beautiful" people in Lamego, the grueling journey to get there, and the magnificence of the African sky — the shooting stars are close enough to touch, she wrote.

"Life is great here, but it is hard," she said. "In America we think we need all these things to be happy, but we don't."

And what about Tvind, IICD, and the controversy surrounding her school?

"I do have a lot of issues with a lack of info about where money goes," Elyse told The Eagle in an e-mail in December. "I knew about Tvind and all that jazz, but honestly you don't think about it at IICD. There's no mention at all of Tvind. But I looked at a lot of options and am still glad I chose this organization."

Despite her daughter's optimism, the money issue — the fundraising, tuition costs, Elyse's meager stipend in Mozambique — has bothered Chaput, who said she did significant research on the program when Elyse was planning to join IICD.

Martinussen said she appreciates people who take that approach.

"We're open to anyone, and we can make mistakes. We never said this program was for everyone. You can't do this for selfish reasons."

And with that, she paused, her eyes welling with frustrated tears.

"Africa is getting poorer," she said. "Things are getting worse, and why is that? All the things that have been done have not worked. I want to focus on doing good and achieving something. If you don't want to take part, that's fine. Just leave us to do what we do."

» IICD Timeline

1969: Mogens Amdi Petersen, a 30-year-old schoolteacher in the Danish city of Odense, quits his job to see the world.

1970: With 11 friends, Petersen forms the Traveling Folk High School. Using an old bus as a classroom, the group begins to travel throughout Denmark. A school in Tvind, a farm near Ulfborg on the west side of Denmark, is established. For the next seven years, the school will teach 10,000 students in 135 countries, and a dozen schools based on its collectivist principles are formed in Europe.

1972: Twenty-year-old Jytte Martinussen joins the Traveling Folk High School. Martinussen is the current director of the Institute for International Cooperation and Development in Williamstown.

1977: Tvind's first roadside clothing bins appear in Scandinavia, and the main common economy between Tvind's followers is founded. The Teacher's Group is born. The organization Humana People to People is founded by Teacher's Group members to help refugees in apartheid Rhodesia.

1979: The TG's membership has swelled to 80 from the original 12.

1981: The first American TG organization is established in a former nursing home in Mathews County, Va. The school is intended to house and educate mentally disturbed wards of the state.

1985: The school in Virginia is decertified and closed down by state authorities. The Humanitarian Foundation, a tax-free charitable trust to be used to promote environmental research and humanitarian work, is started. TG members commit 15 percent of their salaries; the foundation will gather $10 million over the next 14 years.

1986-1987: Humana People to People used-clothing charities are founded throughout Europe.

1986: IICD-Williamstown is founded.

1991: Citing false advertising, health and safety issues, questionable ethics and fundraising practices, and inadequate preparation for work abroad, 15 IICD-Williamstown students make a formal complaint to the Massachusetts attorney general's office.

1992: IICD-Michigan is founded in Dowagiac.

2001: Under suspicion of fraudulent financial practices, seven Tvind offices are raided by policein Denmark. Two offices belong to e-advice, an educational consulting firm where Martinussen is employed.

2002: Petersen is arrested at Los Angeles International Airport and charged with tax evasion and fraud. The prosecution maintains that the TG inner circle — composed of a handful of top-ranking individuals with Petersen at the center — laundered Humanitarian Foundation funds though TG companies and offshore accounts, and socked away $25 million in illegally earned tax credits and embezzled funds. At the hearing in Los Angeles, Petersen is defended by celebrity attorney Robert Shapiro. Petersen is extradited to Denmark. Also in 2002, another complaint about IICD-Williamstown is sent to the Massachusetts attorney general's office.

2003: Martinussen becomes educational manager of IICD-Williamstown after leaving her position at the e-advice consulting firm in Denmark. In September 2006, she takes over as executive director in Williamstown.

2003-2006: Six members of the Teacher's Group, including Petersen, are on trial in Denmark.
August 2006: District Judge finds Petersen and four other TG associates not guilty as accused, although one is found guilty of minor fraud and receives a suspended sentence. Danish prosecutor announces an appeal.

Sources: Berkshire Eagle, Tvindalert.com

Posted by Perry at 04:34 PM

Woman Explains Why She Withdrew From Remnant Fellowship

WKRN TV Nashville
http://wkrn.com/nashville/news/woman-
explains-why-she-withdrew-from-remnant
-fellowship/76522.htm

February 8, 2007

Critics have long questioned the Brentwood-based Remnant Fellowship Church’s teachings of following God.

On Thursday, News 2 spoke with a woman who was a former member of the church, but left after she feared for the safety of her children.

The woman, who did not want her identity revealed, she said didn't quit until she worried about the safety of her children.

She said at first, she liked Remnant Fellowship when she and her family joined the church in 2002. “We were very happy for the most part,” she said.

Remnant Fellowship founder and leader Gwen Shamblin impressed her when they first met. The woman said, “At first I was star struck with her because I had watched her on video for many years and got to go to her mansion and have luncheons and that kind of thing. At first, it was like she was a celebrity.”

She, however, claims when other members of the church started telling her how to discipline her children... That's when her feelings changed.

“I was afraid that my son would get beat severely by another parent,” she said.

Soon after, she and her family left. Now, she has nothing to do with the church, although she is paying very close attention to the murder trial of Joseph and Sonya smith inAtlanta. She hopes the case will shine a light on Remnant Fellowship.

She said, “I pray for them. That’s all I can do is pray for them and hope that they change their ways. I don't feel angry at them; I just don't have the respect I used to have."

When asked what she'd like to see happen, the woman said she would like to see the church fold.

No one else from the Remnant Fellowship Church is charged in the Smith murder case

Church leaders said the Smith’s are innocent.

Posted by Perry at 04:28 PM

Debate over role of sextuplet case lawyer

National Post
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/
news/story.html?id=d0541824-c8cd-
4ec7-adba-ce6b17d64017&k=94344

Witness for the family

Tom Blackwell
February 10, 2007

When the B.C. government seized three sextuplets last month to ensure they received blood transfusions, the lawyer for the Jehovah's Witnesses parents responded sharply, labelling the province's move a legal "hit and run."

But then, Shane Brady is no dispassionate hired gun. As an in-house Witnesses lawyer and respected "Bethelite," he is also a senior religious leader of the sect, lives in its headquarters complex in Georgetown and is known to members nationwide for vigorously defending the group's controversial blood-transfusion ban. His devotion to the religion began when, as a young man, he worked as a baker at the head office.

For some, his intimate involvement in the issue is to be admired. The Canadian Bar Association handed Mr. Brady a young lawyers award in 2004, honouring his "dedication above and beyond the call of duty." But others are less impressed, with an Alberta lawsuit accusing him of using his access as a lawyer and authority within the Church to influence clients to comply with the blood policy, a charge Mr. Brady vehemently denies.

"To Jehovah's Witnesses, Shane Brady is a hero. He is a very important religious figure," says Lawrence Hughes, the Calgary man behind the suit and the father of a teenage girl with leukemia who tried to refuse a transfusion.

"The person coming from Bethel [Witnesses headquarters] is the spokesman of God," said Michael Saunders, a former Bethelite and paralegal with the Church. "I know it sounds really, really ludicrous ... [But] essentially, disobeying him is disobeying God."

Mr. Hughes' lawsuit concerning daughter Bethany's eventual death is now before the Alberta Court of Appeal, after lower court judges quashed the case for partly technical reasons. None of his allegations has been proven in court.

Mr. Brady is not the first Witnesses lawyer to be honoured. Glen How, who fought government discrimination against the Church in the 1940s and after, was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2001.

Yet persecution of the Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) in Canada is part of the past now. And some experts question whether the lawyers -- with their single minded defence of the blood stand -- offer impartial counsel to parents faced with an unenviable choice: risk their child's death by spurning a blood transfusion or defy the Church and face painful expulsion.

"Legal advice, solid legal advice should not be encumbered by the values of the lawyer," said Professor Chris Levy, associate dean of law at the University of Calgary. "Certainly, in my view, [Witnesses lawyers] come very close to crossing that line. Whether they cross it or not is a very difficult question."

Mr. Brady rejects as "offensive" the criticism of his role, arguing that he is simply representing clients with strong religious beliefs, not imposing his own principles or acting for the Church. It is no different, he said, than a lawyer in the United States who cares deeply about the rights of African-Americans representing a group such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"It would be incredible to argue that if a lawyer happens to have a certain moral view ... it would preclude them from taking on a certain case," he said. "That would preclude judges who happen to be Jewish sitting on a case involving Jewish individuals. The whole notion is ridiculous."

Earl Cherniak, a prominent Toronto civil-litigation lawyer and friend of Mr. How, said he has no problem with in-house JW lawyers taking on transfusion cases. But if they do, they must fulfill their professional duty to present clients with all their legal options, including accepting the transfusion.

Mr. Brady was in Vancouver recently, demanding a right to oppose the court order obtained unilaterally by B.C.'s Children and Family Development Ministry that allowed hospital staff to give transfusions to three babies against the parents' wishes. Two of the sextuplets have died. The parties return to court on Feb. 23 to debate the matter.

Officially, Mr. Brady and such colleagues as David Gnam appear in court as members of the law firm W. Glen How and Associates. The citation for his bar association award said he did "pro bono" (free) work for a religious charity.

But the pair are identified on the Web site of Eugene Meehan, Q.C., a private-practice lawyer who worked with them on the Hughes case, as "in-house" counsel for that religion. Former employees of the Watchtower Society Canadian headquarters in Georgetown, called Bethel, have indicated in court documents that How and Associates is, in fact, the Jehovah's Witnesses legal department.

Mr. Brady, like others who work at the head office northwest of Toronto, would have been chosen for his faith and loyalty, said Michael Saunders, a former JW employee who quit the religion in 1995. Also like others, he started with menial jobs -- working as a baker and waiter -- before the Watchtower Society sent him to law school in Toronto, said Mr. Saunders, who was a paralegal in the department for three years. Such Bethelites are considered religious authorities whose word is gospel to other members, he said. On speaking engagements at Kingdom Halls throughout the country, fathers would sometimes even offer up their daughters in marriage to him because of the prestige of his position, he said.

Mr. Brady, who is also an elder, and his wife live in the residences that form part of the headquarters, Mr. Saunders said. Frank Toth, another former Bethelite, said in an affidavit filed in the Hughes case that How and Associates "exists to do the society's bidding," with some lawyers particularly beholden to the organization because the group bankrolled their law degree.

In the Hughes case, Mr. Brady and Mr. Gnam represented Bethany and her mother, Arliss, who stuck by the blood ban while father Lawrence broke from the religion and fought to get Bethany a transfusion. Reports from social workers who sat as witnesses in Bethany's hospital room -- after courts ordered she should face no undue influence -- indicated the lawyers visited and called the girl often, more than once hooking Bethany up by telephone with the family's Kingdom Hall so she could listen to a service. In one case, someone at the service told the teen that everyone "supports her and loves her" in the battle against transfusion. Mr. Hughes said nurses saw Mr. Brady and Mr. Gnam praying with his daughter. His lawsuit charges that they and other Jehovah's Witnesses officials pressured the girl and her mother into opposing a transfusion and seeking out an alternative treatment -- involving arsenic -- that helped lead to her premature death.

Mr. Brady says that suggestion is absurd.

"I've taken my barrister's oath," he said. "No judge has ever raised any concern about my representation of clients."

Posted by Perry at 04:25 PM

February 09, 2007

Teen testifies in murder trial that she heard father hit son

The Tennessean
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070208/
NEWS03/702080436/1001/NEWS

Incident was at Brentwood-based church event

February 8, 2007

By DANIEL YEE
Associated Press

A Brentwood teenager testified Wednesday that she heard a child being hit by his father, now on trial with the boy's mother on charges of beating the child to death.

Laura Boone, 17, told the jury in an Atlanta suburb that she babysat Josef Smith. She had said previously the incident occurred during a Remnant Fellowship Church event in 2003.

Josef's parents, Joseph and Sonya Smith, were charged in a 14-count indictment in June with murder, cruelty to children, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. Their trial in Marietta, Ga., is expected to last through next week.

Boone said Josef was crying on the April 2003 day she went to care for him. When she asked Joseph Smith what to do, he told her to "hit him harder." Boone said she refused to hit the child.

"He took Josef in (another room) and he was still crying, and we could hear him just hitting and the son just wailing," Boone testified, according to courtroom video shown by WTVF-NewsChannel5.

In other testimony Wednesday, police said the Smiths held an online prayer session with their church, Brentwood-based Remnant Fellowship Church, while the child lay dying.

Joseph Smith told police his son frequently needed discipline because the child carved death threats on the walls that kept the family awake at night and claimed he was a foot soldier for the devil.

Prosecutors say the parents met that behavior with a tragic overreaction that led to the boy's death, his body full of bruises and other injuries, after the October 2003 prayer session.

Prosecutors say the boy was beaten by his parents, locked inside a wooden box and forced to stay in a closet for hours at a time. Ex-members of Remnant Fellowship Church say the punishments were in line with discipline advice they heard while attending the church.

Claim disputed

Church leaders dispute that claim. Gwen Shamblin, creator of the Weigh Down Workshop Christian weight loss program, told The Tennessean the church condones discipline, not abuse.

Defense attorneys for the couple say Josef did not die from the injuries, and that the county medical examiner failed to perform crucial tests that would have found the actual cause of his death.

Wednesday, the prosecution showed jurors emergency room photographs of what appeared to be bruises on the boy's head, shoulders, torso and legs. The 10 women and four men showed no reaction as they examined the pictures.

"You can see the bruises and injuries, which appear to be in various stages of healing and occurrence," said Steven Gaynor, who was a Cobb County police detective at the time of Josef's death. Gaynor works for the department's special operations unit.

After the boy's death, Joseph Smith told police investigators that he frequently disciplined the boy with a glue stick, a foot-long piece of flexible material used inside a glue gun.

"He said he on occasion struck young Josef with a belt, but most of the time they struck him with the glue stick, and that was for discipline. In the past, they had used a switch, but that didn't appear to be very effective," Gaynor said. "He said he knew Josef had all these abrasions on his body because he had treated some of them."

The father told detectives they stayed up at night after their son carved death threats against the family on walls of the house and that the child claimed he was "Legion, soldier of the devil," Gaynor said.

"I pictured it as (in the movie) The Exorcist, when you change your voice and become a different person. He said that young Josef would ... make note he wanted to kill everybody in his family," Gaynor said.

"Because of the activities that young Josef was reportedly doing, the family was extremely tired. He (Joseph Smith) indicated it was very stressful for the family to have to take all these actions."

Firefighters responding to a 911 call at the Smith residence also testified Wednesday that the boy was covered in what appeared to be bruises.

Police and emergency medical personnel went on Oct. 8, 2003, to a home in Mableton, 12 miles northwest of Atlanta, after a report that Josef was unresponsive. He later died at a children's hospital.

The boys' parents told authorities he passed out and never regained consciousness after the family gathered in the kitchen to participate in a prayer session with their church via the Internet.

Authorities raided Remnant Fellowship Church in June 2004 as part of the investigation of Josef Smith's death.

"There was some indication that possibly the church was involved, but nothing solid was ever determined," Gaynor said Wednesday.

Posted by Perry at 06:23 PM

Doctor Testifies In Remnant Church Members' Murder Trial

WKRN - TV, Nashville Tennessee
http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/
doctor-testifies-in-remnant-church-
members-murder-trial/76688.htm

February 9, 2007

Graphic photos were seen a doctor’s testimony heard in the murder trial of couple accused of beating to death their eight-year-old son.

Joseph and Sonya Smith are affiliated with Brentwood-based Remnant Fellowship Church and prosecutors believe the church's teachings played a role in the alleged abuse.

“We get concerned not when we see one bruise, but when we see multiple bruises in very concerning patterns in different parts of the body... They're very hard to explain from an accidental injury.”

The ER doctor who treated the boy shortly before this death testified, the boy, Josef Smith, was in extremely critical condition when he arrived with extensive bruising that hinted at a long history of abuse.

He said, “The extent of the injuries he had, the pattern of the injuries that he had, the nature of the injuries that he had, in that several of his injuries were fresh, several were old, several were in the later stages of healing. Those injuries are injuries that we see classically in cases of child abuse.”

The accused couple sat and quietly took notes while prosecutors showed the jury graphic photos of Josef’s injuries.

The trial is expected to last most of next week.

The Remnant Fellowship Church, founded by GwenShamblin, has been criticized in years past for the way it teaches discipline towards children.

Posted by Perry at 06:13 PM

Police manhunt for cult leader who 'eats girls'

The Daily Mail - UK
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/
live/articles/news/worldnews.html?
in_article_id=434980&in_page_id=
1811#StartComments

8th February 2007

Scores of police have been sent to the jungles of remote Papua New Guinea to hunt for a cult leader known as the Black Jesus, who is said to have sacrificed three young women to the devil and eaten their bodies.

In one case reported by villagers, a mother who had fallen under the cult leader's spell led her 14-year-old daughter to his hideout, offered her to him as a virgin then stabbed her to death.

The Black Jesus, 31-year-old Steven Tari, started his cult last year after he was expelled from a Bible college for stealing from fellow students.

He has enticed girls as young as 12 from their homes to be sex slaves, and is thought to have more than 6,000 followers who believe in human sacrifice.

Posted by Perry at 05:59 PM

Judge rules that priest files must be released

The Gazette Extra
http://www.gazetteextra.com/
churchabuse020707.asp

February 7, 2007

By Gillian Flaccus
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - A judge Tuesday ordered the Roman Catholic Church to release insurance records and confidential files related to a notorious priest who had been convicted of molestation before being transferred to California.

Superior Court Judge Peter D. Lichtman ordered the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to make public 3,000 pages of insurance records and hundreds of pages from the secret disciplinary files of Siegfried Widera.

Lichtman wrote that Widera's files prove that "priests with known sexual proclivities have been handed off from location to another without regard to the potential harm to the children of the Church."

Kathleen Hohl, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, said it would abide by the ruling but declined further comment. The documents will not be released for at least 30 days.

In his 59-page ruling, Lichtman struck down archdiocese arguments for keeping the documents private, including claims that the records were protected by third-party privacy rights, the First Amendment and the confidential business rights of the archdiocese.

Attorneys familiar with the case differed about the significance of the ruling regarding hundreds of other clergy abuse cases pending in California.

Raymond Boucher, the lead plaintiffs' attorney for more than 700 abuse claims, said the ruling would set a precedent for the release of other confidential files on priests. Those files can show when the church first learned of allegations of abuse and how the situation was addressed.

"I don't think there's anything that's come out of California that's been this comprehensive and significant," he said.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who won the release of clergy abuse files in Boston, agreed.

"It's a significant step in publicizing such documents and a significant victory for victims," he said.

Attorney Donald Steier, who represents accused priests, said Lichtman's order would not have a significant impact on other California cases. He said the order only applies to the files of priests who are dead and even then, only in cases in which the church has not sought protective orders during litigation.

"Apparently, Milwaukee turned all these files over during the litigation phase without protective orders," Steier said. "The facts that Lichtman relied on won't be applicable in the other cases."

Widera was convicted in Wisconsin in 1973 of sexual perversion. While he was serving probation in that state for the crime, a therapist reported that a mother said her son, a 10-year-old altar boy, had been abused.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee transferred Widera to California in 1981, knowing his history. He was facing 42 counts of child molestation in the two states when he died in 2003 after leaping from a hotel balcony in Mexico.

Last year, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee agreed to pay eight California victims $13.3 million, in addition to nearly $15 million they received in 2004 from the Diocese of Orange, in California.

Under the earlier settlement, Widera's personnel files from California were made public.

"It's beyond belief that you could take a person who had been arrested and was clearly a danger to any child within his reach and yet continue, without warning, to put him right in the middle of his prey," Boucher said.

Posted by Perry at 05:52 PM

Detective: Indication of church involvement, but nothing "solid"

The Tennessean
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070207/
NEWS06/70207079

February 7, 2007

By DANIEL YEE
Associated Press Writer

MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) -- Josef Smith's father told police his 8-year-old son frequently needed discipline because the child carved death threats on the walls that kept the family awake at night and claimed he was a foot-soldier for the devil.

But prosecutors say the parents, Joseph and Sonya Smith, met that behavior with a tragic overreaction that led to the boy's death -- his body full of bruises and other injuries -- after an October 2003 prayer session.

The parents were charged in a 14-count indictment in June with murder, cruelty to children, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. Their trial is expected to last through next week.

Prosecutors allege the boy was beaten by his parents, locked inside a wooden box and forced to stay in a closet for hours at a time before he died.

Defense attorneys for the couple say Josef did not die from the injuries, and that the county medical examiner failed to perform crucial tests that would have found the actual cause of his death.

On Wednesday, the prosecution showed jurors emergency room photographs of what appeared to be bruises on the boys head, shoulders, torso and legs. The panel of 10 women and four men had no visible reaction as they examined the pictures. The panel includes two alternates, who Superior Court Judge James Bodiford has not identified.

"You can see the bruises and injuries which appear to be in various stages of healing and occurrence," said Steven Gaynor, who was a Cobb County police detective at the time of Josef's death. Gaynor currently works for the department's special operations unit.

After the boys death, Joseph Smith openly told police investigators that he frequently disciplined the boy with a glue stick, a foot-long piece of flexible material used inside a glue gun.

"He said he on occasion struck young Josef with a belt but most of the time they struck him with the glue stick and that was for discipline. In the past they had used a switch but that didn't appear to be very effective," Gaynor said. "He said he knew Josef had all these abrasions on his body because he had treated some of them."
The father told detectives they stayed up at night after their son carved death threats against the family on walls of the house and that he claimed he was "Legion, soldier of the devil," Gaynor said.

"I pictured it as (in the movie) 'The Exorcist' when you change your voice and become a different person. He said that young Josef would ... make note he wanted to kill everybody in his family," Gaynor said. "Because of the activities that young Josef was reportedly doing, the family was extremely tired. He (Joseph Smith) indicated it was very stressful for the family to have to take all these actions."
County firefighters responding to a 911 call for help at the Smith residence also testified Wednesday that the boy was "covered" in what appeared to be bruises across his body.

Police and emergency medical personnel went on Oct. 8, 2003, to a home in Mableton, 12 miles northwest of Atlanta, after a report that Josef was "unresponsive." He later died at a children's hospital.

The boys parents told authorities he passed out and never regained consciousness after the family gathered in the kitchen to participate in a prayer session with their church via the Internet.

"While first arriving on the scene, I noticed a slight mark _ it looked like an older mark on his right arm," said firefighter Jeremy DeJames. "Once in the hospital, I saw multiple marks on the child ... lots of bruising, possibly some burn marks, that started from his lower back down to his ankles, and they were covered."

But DeJames admitted after questioning by defense attorney Manubir Singh Arora that he did not know for certain that the marks were bruises. A second firefighter, Andrew Rustin, also said he saw bruising and even what appeared to be burn marks on the boy's body.

"I've got an 8-year-old and he plays and falls ... but he doesn't have the bruising that we saw," Rustin said.

The Smiths are members of the Franklin, Tenn.-based Remnant Fellowship Church, which grew out of church leader Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down Workshop, a Christian diet program she created in 1986. Authorities raided the church in June 2004 as part of the investigation of Josef Smith's death.

"There was some indication that possibly the church was involved but nothing solid was ever determined," Gaynor said Wednesday during the trial.

Posted by Perry at 05:46 PM

Chicago Man Claims 4 Priests Raped Him as a Child

THE-BEE
http://www.phillipswi.com/bee/index.
php?sect_rank=1&story_id=206316

Attorney claims there are Wisconsin victims

Patti Wenzel, patti.wenzel@mx3.com

February 07th, 2007

A Chicago man filed a civil lawsuit Jan. 29 alleging that Fr. Terrance Fitzmaurice, who had served at Our Lady of the North Catholic Church in Phillips (St. Patrick’s and St. Mary’s), raped him 30 years ago.

Perry Collins, along with his mother Doris Thomas, also alleges that the city of Chicago, Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, St. Procopius Abbey and the Order of St. Benedict in Lisle, Ill., conspired to cover up the priest’s actions because he is an African American.

During an interview with FOX News Chicago, Collins attorney Phillips Aaron also alleged that 15 boys had filed complaints against Fitzmaurice while he was assigned to St. Patrick’s, St. Mary’s and Our Lady of the North parishes in Phillips.

The Catholic Diocese of Superior previously said there have been no reports of misconduct by Fitzmaurice while serving in Phillips. Calls to the diocese concerning the latest accusations were not returned prior to press time.

According to the lawsuit filed in federal court, Collins alleges that Fitzmaurice took him, then 10, to a building where he was given alcohol and raped by Fitzmaurice and three other priests. The three priests are not identified in court papers.

After the alleged incident, Collins said Fitzmaurice took him home and promised his mother pastoral care and food.

At the time of the alleged incident Fitzmaurice was serving as a pastor at St. Procopius parish on Chicago’s south side and supervised up to 400 young men and women as part of Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Summer Youth Employment Program. The program received federal funds and the Archdiocese partnered with the city to help screen job applicants.

In addition to the sexual assault allegations, Collins and Thomas, claim the Chicago Archdiocese, Benedictine order and city of Chicago conspired to keep Fitzmaurice’s actions secret, allowed him to use federal and archdiocesan funds to cover up his alleged actions and conspired to perpetuate a fraud.

The suit also alleges Fitzmaurice violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by using his position as the supervisor of the jobs program to target African-American and other minority children for his alleged crimes.

Aaron had provided this account to THE-BEE in November after the first reports of Fitzmaurice’s alleged misconduct surfaced. He requested this information be kept confidential at that time, since he was in negotiations with the Archdiocese, Order and city concerning the matter.

However, in the ensuing months, discussion between Aaron and the defendants broke down.

“The Archdiocese wasn’t dealing in good faith,” Aaron said after filing the suit.

Aaron said Collins’ situation forced him to move forward with a lawsuit. He said Collins has needed extensive medical and psychological care and tried to commit suicide twice, including hiring someone to kill him. Collins is now physically disabled due to a bullet lodged near his spinal cord from the attempted suicide.

“They said and promised things they didn’t follow through on. This young man’s life has been totally devastated,” Aaron said.

He added that the archdiocese had agreed to commit $1,500 towards a doctor for Collins. That doctor charges $4,000 and Collins is homeless and has no way to pay for the bills.

Aaron’s primary practice is based in Seattle, but he has represented numerous African-American victims of clergy abuse from the Chicago Archdiocese. He also founded African-American Advocates for