France repays Jehovah’s Witnesses $8.3m illegal tax

PARIS — After a 15-year legal battle, the government of France repaid to Jehovah’s Witnesses funds totaling 6,373,987.31 Euros ($8,294,320; N1.3 billion). This is even as the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, ruled that the government of Armenia must pay 112,000 Euros ($145,226) in damages and legal fees to 17 Jehovah’s Witnesses conscientious objectors for human rights violations.
An online statement from the organisation’s website, weekend, said: “In 1998, the government of France asserted that religious donations made by Jehovah’s Witnesses were subject to a crushing retroactive 60 percent tax and, in 2003, demanded partial payment.
“The European Court of Human Rights found that France was guilty of violating the religious freedom of Jehovah’s Witnesses through the illegal tax, which, if enforced, could have resulted in the liquidation of the Witnesses’ national offices and obstructed their Bible education work.
“Since the Court ruled that the tax was illegal, the French government is now starting to implement the Court’s decision by returning the funds collected, with interest, and paying the Witnesses’ legal expenses,” said the statement.
The statement further said: “In 2005, 17 young men who are Jehovah’s Witnesses were performing alternative civilian service. However, when they realised that it was under the control and supervision of the military, they could no longer continue to serve in good conscience and subsequently left their places of service. They were, thereafter, arrested and prosecuted. Some were held in pretrial detention for several months, and 11 were eventually sentenced to prison terms from two to three years.”
“The European Court ruled that these criminal prosecutions and detentions were illegal because in 2005, there was no law in Armenia that made it a crime to abandon alternative civilian service. The Court held that Armenia violated the Witnesses’ right to liberty and security as protected under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Although the government later dropped the criminal charges against the 17, Armenia refused to compensate them for the unlawful criminal prosecutions and detentions. Therefore, the Court ordered Armenia to pay compensation for moral damages and legal fees.
This judgment comes in the wake of three other European Court rulings against Armenia on the issue of neutrality.
In all four cases, the Armenian authorities mistreated conscientious objectors who are Jehovah’s Witnesses and unjustly dealt with them as if they were dangerous criminals.