Editing Religious persecution (section)

====Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses====
{{Main|Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses}}
[[File:Jehovas Zeugen - Länder ohne berichtete Aktivitat.png|thumb|250px|Countries where Jehovah's Witnesses' activities are banned]]
Political and religious animosity against Jehovah's Witnesses has at times led to [[mob action]] and government oppression in various countries. Their stance regarding political neutrality and their refusal to serve in the military has led to imprisonment of members who [[Conscientious objector|refused conscription]] during [[World War II]] and at other times where [[national service]] has been compulsory. Their religious activities are currently banned or restricted in some countries,<ref>{{cite news |title=Countries Where Jehovah's Witnesses' Activities Are Banned |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/countries-where-jehovahs-witnesses-activities-are-banned/29757419.html |work=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |date=7 February 2019}}</ref> including China, [[Vietnam]], and many [[Muslim world|Islamic states]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom |publisher=[[Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania]] |year=1993 |page=490 |url=https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101993030 |via=Watchtower Online Library |access-date=25 October 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses |publisher=[[Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania]] |year=1991 |page=222 |url=https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/301991017 |via=Watchtower Online Library |access-date=25 October 2020}}</ref>

* In 1933, there were approximately 20,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in [[Nazi Germany]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Penton |first=James |author-link=James Penton |title=Jehovah's Witnesses and the Third Reich: sectarian politics under persecution|url=https://archive.org/details/jehovahswitnesse0000pent_f0s7|url-access=registration |location=[[Toronto]] |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-0802086785 |page=[https://archive.org/details/jehovahswitnesse0000pent_f0s7/page/376 376]}}</ref> of whom about 10,000 were imprisoned. [[Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany|Jehovah's Witnesses were brutally persecuted by the Nazis]], because they [[Conscientious objector|refused military service]] and allegiance to [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]'s [[Nazi Party|National Socialist Party]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Blainey |first=Geoffrey |author-link=Geoffrey Blainey |year=2011 |title=[[A Short History of Christianity]] |location=London |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |pages=495–496 |isbn=9780281076208}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Chu |first=Jolene |date=September 2004 |title=God's things and Caesar's: Jehovah's Witnesses and political neutrality |journal=[[Journal of Genocide Research]] |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=319–342 |doi=10.1080/1462352042000265837 |s2cid=71908533}}</ref><ref name="Wrobel 2006">{{cite journal |last=Wrobel |first=Johannes S. |date=August 2006 |url=https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rss/34-2_089.pdf |title=Jehovah's Witnesses in National Socialist concentration camps, 1933–45 |journal=Religion, State & Society |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=89–125 |doi=10.1080/09637490600624691 |s2cid=145110013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120521084542/https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rss/34-2_089.pdf |archive-date=21 May 2012 |url-status=live |access-date=25 October 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Knox |first=Zoe |year=2018 |chapter=Politics |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EtBJDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA61 |title=Jehovah's Witnesses and the Secular World: From the 1870s to the Present |location=London |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |series=Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700–2000 |pages=61–106 |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-39605-1_3 |isbn=978-1-137-39604-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1979405 |title=Insight on the News - "Holocaust" Questions |date=1 June 1979 |magazine=[[The Watchtower]] |publisher=[[Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania]] |page=20 |via=Watchtower Online Library |access-date=25 October 2020}}</ref> Of those, 2,000 were sent to [[Nazi concentration camps]], where they were identified by [[purple triangle]]s;<ref name="Wrobel 2006"/> as many as 1,200 died, including 250 who were executed.<ref>{{cite book|last=Garbe|first=Detlef|title=Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|year=2008|location=Madison, Wisconsin|page=484|isbn=978-0-299-20794-6}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Jehovah's Witnesses|url=https://www.holocaust-trc.org/jehovahs-witnesses/|access-date=2023-01-02|website=Holocaust Teacher Resource Center|language=en-US}}</ref>
* In [[Canada in World War II|Canada during World War II]], Jehovah's Witnesses were interned in camps<ref>{{cite book|last=Kaplan|first=William|title=State and Salvation|location=Toronto|publisher=University of Toronto Press|year=1989}}</ref> along with [[Political dissent|political dissidents]] and people of Chinese and Japanese descent.<ref>{{cite news|last=Yaffee|first=Barbara|title=Witnesses Seek Apology for Wartime Persecution|work=The Globe and Mail|date=9 September 1984|page=4}}</ref> Jehovah's Witnesses faced discrimination in [[Quebec]] until the [[Quiet Revolution]], including bans on distributing [[Jehovah's Witnesses practices#Evangelism|literature]] or holding [[Jehovah's Witnesses practices#Worship|meetings]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1953/1953canlii3/1953canlii3.html|title=Saumur v Quebec (City of)|last=Supreme Court of Canada|series=[1953] 2 SCR 299|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706012152/http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1953/1953canlii3/1953canlii3.html|archive-date=6 July 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1959/1959canlii50/1959canlii50.html|title=Roncarelli v Duplessis|last=Supreme Court of Canada|series=[1959] SCR 121|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130112043742/http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1959/1959canlii50/1959canlii50.html|archive-date=12 January 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* In 1951, about 9,300 Jehovah's Witnesses in the [[Soviet Union]] were deported to [[Siberia]] as part of [[Operation North]] in April 1951.<ref name="passat">Валерий Пасат ."Трудные страницы истории Молдовы (1940–1950)". Москва: Изд. Terra, 1994 {{in lang|ru}}</ref>
* In April 2017, the [[Supreme Court of Russia]] labeled Jehovah's Witnesses an extremist organization, banned its activities in Russia and issued an order to confiscate the organization's assets.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-religion-jehovah-s-idUSKBN17M1ZT|title=Russian court bans Jehovah's Witnesses as extremist|publisher=delfi.lt |access-date=20 April 2017|newspaper=Reuters|date=20 April 2017}}</ref>

Authors including [[William J. Whalen|William Whalen]], Shawn Francis Peters and former Witnesses [[Barbara Grizzuti Harrison]], Alan Rogerson and William Schnell have claimed the arrests and mob violence in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s were the consequence of what appeared to be a deliberate course of provocation of authorities and other religious groups by Jehovah's Witnesses. Whalen, Harrison and Schnell have suggested [[Joseph Franklin Rutherford|Rutherford]] invited and cultivated opposition for publicity purposes in a bid to attract dispossessed members of society, and to convince members that persecution from the outside world was evidence of the truth of their struggle to serve God.<ref>{{cite book|last=Peters|first=Shawn Francis|title=Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution|url=https://archive.org/details/judgingjehovahsw0000pete|url-access=registration|publisher=University Press of Kansas|year=2000|pages=[https://archive.org/details/judgingjehovahsw0000pete/page/82 82], 116–9|isbn=978-0-7006-1008-2}}</ref><ref>Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, ''Visions of Glory'', 1978, chapter 6.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Whalen|first=William J.|title=Armageddon Around the Corner: A Report on Jehovah's Witnesses|publisher=John Day Company|year=1962|location=New York|page=190}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Schnell|first=William|title=30 Years a Watchtower Slave|publisher=Baker Book House, Grand Rapids|year=1971|pages=104–106|isbn=978-0-8010-6384-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Rogerson|first=Alan|title=Millions Now Living Will Never Die: A Study of Jehovah's Witnesses|publisher=Constable & Co, London|year=1969|page=59|isbn=978-0094559400}}</ref> Watch Tower Society literature of the period directed that Witnesses should "never seek a controversy" nor resist arrest, but also advised members not to co-operate with police officers or courts that ordered them to stop preaching, and to prefer jail rather than pay fines.<ref>{{cite book|title=Advice for Kingdom Publishers|publisher=Watchtower Bible and Tract Society|year=1939|pages=5–6, 14}}</ref>