As Jehovah's Witnesses gather in Prague, members deny being cult

Prague's Strahov Stadium recently hosted a mass open-air meeting of the Czech Jehovah's Witnesses, where dozens of converts were introduced into the controversial religious order. The Czech Republic is among the most agnostic societies in the world, and the organisation remains small. Rob Cameron has the following report.

The first groups of Jehovah's Witnesses started operating in Bohemia and Moravia in 1912. The group was heavily persecuted by Czechoslovakia's Communist regime, primarily for their refusal to do military service. However the overthrow of Communism in 1989 brought with it religious freedom, and more than 23,000 people described themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses in the 2001 census. Martin Hoffman is from the organisation's Prague branch.

"The majority of people are indifferent to spiritual things, especially in Czechia I think. And some of them are interested in the Bible and in learning more about what it teaches, but I think mainly the attitude of people is that they have their own problems and sometimes it's not easy to overcome such indifference for the Jehovah's Witnesses."

The Jehovah's Witnesses are a controversial faith group of course, and have been described by some as a cult. Martin Hoffman rejects this.

"A cult is a religion that is said to be unorthodox, and cults are known as having a leader - a living leader. But the Jehovah's Witnesses don't have any leader, they consider Jesus Christ as their leader. And also one of the feature of cults is that they have some secret rituals. But the Jehovah's Witnesses have public meetings, it's open to everyone. So we try to follow the Bible's principles, and we have no leader, no secret teachings, so we are open."

But not everyone agrees. Psychiatrist Prokop Remes is a member of an organisation called the Society for the Study of Sects and New Religious Movements.

"Of course they would say that, wouldn't they? But Jesus speaks through someone. And that someone claims to know what Jesus is saying. It's not up to the individual members to decide what Jesus is saying to them. No, there's a leader, he's based in Brooklyn in New York, and he decides - through articles in the Watchtower - what God's truth and what isn't. So it's their way of making the unacceptability of a totalitarian organisation more palatable."

Prokop Remes says in general the Jehovah's Witnesses do not pose a danger to majority society. The risk, he says, is to their own members. There have been several cases in this country of children of Jehovah's Witnesses dying after their parents refused blood transfusions. The matter has even gone to the Constitutional Court - with the Court deciding that ultimately, the rights of a child must come before their parents' religious affiliation.