Vol. I · Wednesday, October 28, 2026 RSS  ·  Search  ·  About
JW FILES

News and primary-source research on the Watchtower organization

Every story is tagged:Confirmed court record or 2+ reputable outletsReported single credible outletCommunity reader-sourced, unverified
ExplainerConfirmedLegal

UPDATE: European rights court's ruling against a Bulgarian town's door-to-door preaching ban is now final

Illustration: a front door and doorstep beside a municipal ordinance and scales of justice

In Velev and Others v. Bulgaria a unanimous Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held that Shumen's ordinance banning "religious propaganda at residents' homes" violated Article 9. The Court's own copy of the judgment records that it became final on 9 September 2026 under Article 44 § 2. No damages were awarded — the Court held the finding of a violation was redress enough — and each of the three applicants gets EUR 1,000 towards costs.

JW Files Desk · Updated October 28, 2026 · 9 min read

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Legal

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ItalyConfirmed

UPDATE: Italy's government asks the European Court to send its Jehovah's Witnesses discrimination ruling to the Grand Chamber

Illustration: an unsigned accord beside coins and a tax form, with a faint ring of stars

A panel of five judges examines Italy's referral request on 2 November 2026, the Court announced on 26 October. The June judgment — that Italy's decades-long failure to ratify a State agreement (an 'intesa') kept Jehovah's Witnesses out of a system letting taxpayers send part of their income tax to a religion — stays not final until the panel rules, and the EUR 18,000 award is not yet payable.

· Updated October 28, 2026 · 9 min read

ArmeniaConfirmed

European rights court finds Armenia breached religious freedom by refusing Jehovah's Witnesses permission to build places of worship

Illustration: three empty surveyed plots of land on a planning drawing, each covered by a blank unstamped permit form, with an unused rubber stamp beside them

Yerevan's mayor's office refused two of three planning applications for land the organisation bought in 2009 on the ground that neighbours complained about religious buildings, and deferred the third. On 1 October 2026 a three-judge Committee of the European Court of Human Rights held unanimously that no evidence of those complaints was ever produced and no law allowing the refusals was ever named, so the interference was not "prescribed by law" and breached Article 9. It awarded EUR 4,500 plus EUR 3,232 in costs. The judgment is final.

· October 1, 2026 · 11 min read

D.D.C. No. 24-cv-02523Confirmed

UPDATE: Papers in Watch Tower's revived suit over Russia's seizure of its St Petersburg headquarters sent to State Department for diplomatic service

Illustration: a sealed, undelivered envelope resting on a rolled property deed beside a ring of keys

A federal judge in Washington threw the case out in September 2025 because the lawsuit papers had never been validly delivered. On 23 July 2026 he undid that dismissal and gave the Jehovah's Witnesses' Pennsylvania corporation 180 days to serve the defendants again, this time through the State Department. On 12 August the court clerk sent the papers to the State Department to pass on. As of the docket reviewed on 21 October, the court has decided nothing about whether a U.S. court can hear the claim at all.

· Updated October 21, 2026 · 10 min read

BrazilConfirmed

UPDATE: Brazil's Supreme Court twice lists and twice pulls its judgment on transfusions given against a patient's refusal

Illustration: a wall calendar with one date circled above a judicial bench rail holding two case files, an open statute book and an hourglass

The STF's president put ADPF 618 and ADPF 642 on the plenary calendar for 30 September, removed them, relisted them for 21 October, and removed them again on 15 October; neither docket, as of 21 October, gives a reason. The merits judgment, suspended twice since 2025, records two justices' positions. Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania and the Associação das Testemunhas Cristãs de Jeová are admitted friends of the court in ADPF 618.

· Updated October 21, 2026 · 11 min read

New York federal copyright rulingConfirmed

UPDATE: Judge bars Watch Tower itself from seeing JW archivist's identity; its outside lawyers may

Illustration: a blank mask beside a stack of periodicals and scales of justice, over a faint network grid

Judge Kenneth M. Karas, who in July refused to cancel Watch Tower's DMCA subpoena to Cloudflare, signed a protective order on 2 October 2026. Information that identifies the anonymous archivist may go to Watch Tower's outside counsel and people working for them, but not to the organisation itself, absent Doe's consent or a further court order.

· Updated October 17, 2026 · 19 min read

CanadaConfirmed

Supreme Court of Canada hears Jehovah's Witness congregations' challenge to order to show former members' records to BC privacy adjudicator

Illustration: a sealed envelope and a closed lockbox on a table facing an empty official's chair, before a bench of nine empty judges' chairs

Two elders, the Grand Forks and Coldstream congregations and Watch Tower Canada argued on 9 October 2026 that British Columbia's privacy law cannot compel them to produce records they say are confidential religious records about former members Gabriel-Liberty Wall and Gregory Westgarde to the commissioner's adjudicator for review. Both BC courts upheld the 2022 production order. The Supreme Court reserved judgment.

· October 9, 2026 · 11 min read

Doctrine

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DoctrineConfirmed

Watchtower allows Jehovah's Witnesses to store and reinfuse their own blood

Illustration: an IV blood bag over an aged printed page

A Governing Body update made the storage and reinfusion of a patient's own blood a matter of personal conscience — one more move in an 80-year doctrine that keeps shifting in one direction. Updated 19 September 2026: six months later the Governing Body extended the same principle to the four primary components of another person's blood; whole-blood transfusions remain prohibited.

· Updated September 19, 2026 · 6 min read

DoctrineConfirmed

Governing Body makes donor blood's four main components a personal decision

Illustration: a printed doctrinal page beside four empty laboratory vials in a row

A “Questions From Readers” article released on 18 September 2026 leaves the use of red cells, white cells, plasma and platelets taken from another person — and the decision to donate blood so components or fractions can be made from it — to each member's conscience, and says the congregation “will not get involved in that decision.” Transfusions of whole blood, and donating blood for one, remain prohibited. It is the second change to the blood doctrine this year.

· September 18, 2026 · 9 min read

DoctrineConfirmed

A 2011 Watchtower Called Apostates 'Mentally Diseased'

Illustration: an open magazine with a highlighted line and a dividing wall

A July 15, 2011 study article urged Jehovah's Witnesses to shun former members it described, citing 1 Timothy 6:3-4, as 'mentally diseased.' The wording drew UK press coverage, a Portsmouth police complaint that produced no charge, and an Australian tribunal filing.

· July 15, 2011 · 3 min read

DoctrineConfirmed

Governing Body Reframes Higher Education as a Personal Decision

Illustration: a mortarboard on a book beside a crossroads signpost

In Governing Body Update #5, released on jw.org on August 22, 2025, David Splane addressed 'additional secular education' and, per ex-member transcriptions, presented it more as a personal choice than the spiritual risk decades of Watchtower literature had described.

· August 22, 2025 · 3 min read

Media

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Director Pablo Aguinaga described the survivors' testimonies as 'devastating; these were deeply broken people who had suffered greatly.'Confirmed

HBO Max Releases Spanish Docuseries 'Surviving the Jehovah's Witnesses'

Illustration: a film clapperboard and a play-button triangle

The three-part series Sobrevivir al Paraiso: Mas alla de los Testigos de Jehova premiered on HBO Max on 20 February 2026, tracing former Spanish members' accounts of abuse, shunning, and legal action. Reception has so far been mixed and thinly covered by major outlets.

· February 20, 2026 · 2 min read

Finance

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Leadership

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Superseded by an August 1, 2016 letterConfirmed

A 2012 letter told elders to call lawyers first, and left out the police

Illustration: a sealed confidential letter beside a telephone handset

A confidential October 1, 2012 letter to U.S. bodies of elders routed child-abuse allegations through Watch Tower's Legal and Service Departments, kept the two-witness rule, and let the branch decide who counts as a "predator" — while saying nothing about reporting to secular authorities.

· October 1, 2012 · 4 min read