Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Jehovah's Witnesses Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany · 2016

Germany: Jehovah's Witness congregant convicted of abusing a boy during Kingdom Hall ceremonies, Greifswald

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

senior congregant in a paternal-mentor role within the Greifswald Kingdom Hall congregation

Organization

Jehovah's Witnesses — Königreichssaal Greifswald

Spiritual nexus

The perpetrator occupied a trusted, quasi-paternal role within the closed congregation, and the abuse is tied to religious ceremonies at the Kingdom Hall; the congregation's own internal, years-long, non-reporting handling of his confession is the coercive institutional mechanism that delayed any external accountability.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2016-05-10 · conviction

    Amtsgericht Greifswald, Germany. A 53-year-old member of the Jehovah's Witnesses' Greifswald congregation was convicted of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in two incidents in 2005, occurring in connection with religious ceremonies at the Greifswald Kingdom Hall. He confessed fully, sparing the child a trial appearance, and received one year two months' probation plus a €900 fine. He had confessed to congregation elders roughly a year after the abuse; the elders took no action for years and only expelled him from the congregation in 2012, seven years after his confession and four years before the criminal conviction.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • trusted paternal-figure role within the closed congregation
  • congregation's multi-year internal handling of his confession before any report to authorities

Primary record

Sources

regional newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report Nordkurier, 'Sexueller Missbrauch: Zeuge Jehovas verurteilt' (10 May 2016). German: reports the Greifswald district court conviction, sentence, and the congregation's multi-year internal handling. English gloss: 'Sexual abuse: Jehovah's Witness convicted.'

Primary German court-reporting article naming the court, sentence, dates, and congregation's internal response.

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