A BANNED SECT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21816, 20 November 1940, Page 6

A BANNED SECT

Reply To Protest By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, November 19. "The Government has not interfered in any way with the right of people to worship according to their religious beliefs and conscience,” said the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser, when his attention was drawn in an interview to-night to the cable message from Sydney stating that the headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses for Australia and New Zealand had sent a message to the King protesting at the ban imposed on the organisation by the New Zealand Government. “If the body called Jehovah’s Witnesses would coniine themselves to ordinary religious observance like the churches and other religious bodies they have full liberty to do so and there would be no Interference with them whatever,” said Mr Fraser. However, difficulties in New Zealand arose through Jehovah’s Witnesses constituting themselves a propaganda body against other churches and thereby causing widespread ill-feeling, resentment and bitterness, which resulted in at least one unfortunate incident in this country. Such provocative conduct and incitement would be inimical at any time and cannot be tolerated during wartime, when the greatest amount of unity and co-operation among members of all religious faiths is essential. There has been no interference with the right to worship, but there has been a prohibition imposed on the dissemination of literature and other propaganda directed against, religious organisations.”