The Guardian, “'Hypocrite' Jehovah's Witnesses abandon secret link with UN”
“The Jehovah's Witnesses have hurriedly disaffiliated from the United Nations within days of a Guardian story in which members accused the sect of hypocrisy for supporting an organisation it has repeatedly denounced privately.”
Reports the withdrawal, that the organisation had 'secretly affiliated to the UN as a non-governmental organisation for 10 years', and that members who raised the matter were 'accused of apostasy'.
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Provenance and verification note for The Guardian, 'Hypocrite' Jehovah's Witnesses abandon secret link with UN
Confidence note. Wording matches across the culteducation.com republication and the newspaper clipping scan; the theguardian.com URL guessed (/uk/2001/oct/15/religion.world) returns 404 and the live article was not located.
Scan provenance. Newspaper clipping scan hosted by jwfacts.com; read as an image in this session
Corroborated by. src-guardian-2001-1008-jw-link-to-un-queried, src-un-2004-0304-hoeffel-dpi-letter
Notes. The brief's title 'Jehovah's Witnesses withdraw from UN' appears to be a paraphrase; the published headline is as above.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-guardian-2001-1015-hypocrite-abandon-secret-link