MANY ARRESTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 184, 5 August 1940, Page 4

MANY ARRESTS.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES 64 MEMBERS CHARGED. MAGISTRATES KEPT BUST. (Special.—By Air Mall.) SYDNEY, August 3. Four magistrates in two courts were required on Monday to deal with charges against 64 members of Jehovah's Witnesses arising out of an occurrence last week. The sect are holding their annual conference at their headquarters at Strathfield, Sydney. On Friday night, a large number of them came into town to find police waiting to meet them at Central railway .station. They split up into small groups and more than 100 police were detailed to follow them. When the Witnesses came together again in another part of the city and produced banners and sandwich boards, they were arrested, mostly on charges of having carried advertising placards, but some also on charges of offensive behaviour. More than 50 of the 64 members charged were remanded. Twelve of the Witnesses were from Queensland, eight from Victoria, two from South Australia and one each from Tasmania and New Zealand. Police jjave evidence that one Witness said he did not need permission to dieplay the woTd of Ood. Gn one placard there was a sign, "Hear, 'Victory,' by Judge Rutherford." The police contended that this removed the sign from the category of religion and made it an advertising matter. This Witness admitted that instructions had "been issued at the conference for Witnesses to carry, banners and placards during shopping hours. He said that if human laws conflicted with God's laws Witnesses would disobey the man-made ones. When he was allowed seven days in which to pay a fine of 10/. the police prosecutor said: "These people openly boast that they will never pay a fine." Witnesses who 'gave an undertaking that they would not carry any more placards were bound over and those who would not give an undertaking were fined email amounts.