{"id":931,"date":"2012-07-05T18:07:40","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T18:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2012\/07\/05\/france-ordered-to-pay-millions-for-illegal-taxation-of-jehovahs-witnesses\/"},"modified":"2012-07-05T18:07:40","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T18:07:40","slug":"france-ordered-to-pay-millions-for-illegal-taxation-of-jehovahs-witnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/france-ordered-to-pay-millions-for-illegal-taxation-of-jehovahs-witnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"France ordered to pay millions for illegal taxation of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">STRASBOURG, France\u2014The European Court of Human Rights ruled today that the government of France must pay over 4.5 million euros ($5,600,000 US approx.) for full restitution to Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses for violating their religious freedom through illegal taxation.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Last year, on June 30, 2011, the European Court ruled that the government of France violated the rights of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses when it attempted to impose a retroactive 60 percent tax on all religious donations made by Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in France between 1993 and 1996. The Court invited the parties to resolve the matter amicably, but because the government maintained that the excessive taxation was not illegal, a friendly settlement was impossible.<\/div>\n<p> <!--more--> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">In today\u2019s decision, the government was ordered to remove \u201call consequences\u201d of the tax. In addition to returning the 4,590,295 euros ($5,749,439.50 US approx.) that were confiscated at the time that the taxation was imposed, plus interest, the government is to pay the Witnesses 55,000 euros ($68,888.64 US approx.) for legal costs and expenses. It is expected that full restitution will also include removing all liens or mortgages from the facilities owned and used by the Witnesses in Louviers.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Andr\u00e9 Carbonneau, one of the attorneys for the Witnesses who worked on this case, stated: \u201cIt is hoped that this decision will encourage the French government to proceed with more restraint and caution in the future before using legal mechanisms such as taxation to restrict the religious freedom of its citizens.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">J. R. Brown, a spokesman for the Witnesses at their world headquarters in New York, commented: \u201cClearly, these efforts by the government of France to financially stop our Bible education work in France did not succeed. We rejoice over this development, along with our fellow believers and other citizens of France who appreciate their right to accept or reject our Christian message.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">http:\/\/www.jw-media.org\/fra\/20120705.htm<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STRASBOURG, France\u2014The European Court of Human Rights ruled today that the government of France must pay over 4.5 million euros ($5,600,000 US approx.) for full restitution to Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses for violating their religious freedom through&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}