D.N.J. No. 25-cv-01459Confirmed
A federal judge dismissed the congregation's bid to escape a 1999 payment-in-lieu-of-taxes deal on its Turnersville Assembly Hall, ruling only that a federal court is the wrong forum — she decided nothing about whether the hall is tax-exempt. CCJW appealed; the Third Circuit docketed the case on 11 May 2026, the most current docket JW Files could obtain.
· April 1, 2026 · 11 min read
Kings County, Index No. 522573/2026Confirmed
A woman suing under the pseudonym D.B. Doe filed against the Governing Body, Watchtower and the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses on 16 June 2026, invoking a January 2026 amendment that revives decades-old claims and extends liability to institutions. Watchtower appeared through counsel on 13 July 2026; the allegations remain untested and, as of 21 July, the docket shows no answer from any defendant.
· June 16, 2026 · 11 min read
UN Working Group on Arbitrary DetentionConfirmed
Opinion No. 30/2026 finds the detentions arbitrary under categories I, II and V and recommends release plus compensation. Russia responded nine days after the deadline, citing the extremism designation; the panel could not accept the reply as timely. The opinion is not binding, and the Working Group made no finding of torture or unfair trial.
· March 30, 2026 · 10 min read
RussiaConfirmed
The Committee's 13 March 2026 ruling found unlawful arrest, religious discrimination and denial of minority rights in a 2018 Ufa case, and ordered unspecified compensation. It also dismissed several claims, refused an earlier emergency request, and has no power to enforce anything.
· March 13, 2026 · 12 min read
LegalConfirmed
In sister Child Victims Act cases over Robert Warne, a ministerial servant at a Middleport, N.Y. congregation, a court denied Watchtower's bid to shield its nationwide reports of known abusers and pierced clergy privilege over his confession letter — before both suits settled in 2026. The Governing Body was dismissed from one case and kept in the other.
· May 22, 2026 · 7 min read
The Bundesgerichtshof did not award the more-than-1,000-document archive to anyone; it found the lower court used the wrong standard on good-faith acquisition and sent the case back.Confirmed
Germany's Federal Court of Justice quashed a Cologne ruling and remanded the dispute over the Kusserow family archive held in a Dresden military museum. Ownership remains undecided.
· June 26, 2026 · 6 min read
DoctrineConfirmed
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
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
Governing Body UpdateConfirmed
A Governing Body Update dated December 15, 2023, and reportedly presented by Stephen Lett relaxed a decades-long grooming norm, reframing a neatly trimmed beard as a matter of personal conscience and local decision.
· December 15, 2023 · 3 min read
MediaConfirmed
The three-part series, released March 2024 on RTL's streaming service, is built on testimony from 57 former members and covers abuse, shunning, and apocalyptic teaching.
· March 13, 2024 · 3 min read
Director Pablo Aguinaga described the survivors' testimonies as 'devastating; these were deeply broken people who had suffered greatly.'Confirmed
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
FinanceConfirmed
Jehovah's Witnesses closed on the 432,989-square-foot 'Blue Lake' facility across the lake from their New York world headquarters on June 26, 2026, for an undisclosed price.
· June 26, 2026 · 5 min read
PropertyConfirmed
In December 2017 a St. Petersburg court cleared the way for the state to take the Witnesses' former national headquarters — a 14-building complex owned by a U.S. entity — as fallout from the 2017 ban.
· December 7, 2017 · 1 min read
Superseded by an August 1, 2016 letterConfirmed
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
A rare announced departure from Jehovah's Witnesses' highest council, followed by a documented content scrubConfirmed
On February 22, 2023, the organization behind Jehovah's Witnesses announced in one sentence that Governing Body member Anthony Morris III 'no longer serves' — gave no reason — and then scrubbed his recorded talks from jw.org over the following weeks.
· February 22, 2023 · 7 min read
Leaked documentsConfirmed
The confidential 274-page "Shepherd the Flock of God" — which governs the Witnesses' judicial committees, the two-witness rule, and disfellowshipping — was leaked and published, exposing the internal disciplinary system to public view.
· February 5, 2019 · 2 min read
Leaked documentsConfirmed
The "Palmer Leaks" — 33 confidential documents published by the transparency site FaithLeaks — detailed how Jehovah's Witnesses elders and headquarters handled abuse allegations inside one congregation.
· January 9, 2018 · 2 min read
TestimonyConfirmed
Geoffrey Jackson, a member of the Governing Body that runs Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide, gave sworn evidence to Australia's Royal Commission — on the group's claim to speak for God, the two-witness rule, and whether women could judge abuse cases.
· August 14, 2015 · 5 min read