Media and anti-cultists misinterpret a (wrong) decision as a judicial condemnation of the religion rather than a free-speech case.
by Massimo Introvigne
The appeal judgment issued on 16 April 2026 by the Madrid Provincial Court, Section 21 (decision n.º 122/2026) in favor of the Asociación Española de Víctimas de los Testigos de Jehová (AEVTJ) in a case brought against them by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which confirmed the first degree decision of 2023, has already been celebrated in some Spanish media and by the international anti-cult movement as if it were a judicial declaration that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a “destructive cult.” This interpretation is as inaccurate as it is legally untenable. The court was not asked to decide whether the Jehovah’s Witnesses are good or bad, a religion or a “cult,” beneficial or harmful. Its task was far narrower: to determine whether the AEVTJ’s name, statutes, and public statements calling the Jehovah’s Witnesses a “cult” and worse, unlawfully violated the denomination’s right to honor, or whether they fell within the limits of freedom of expression and information as protected by Spanish constitutional law and the European Convention on Human Rights.
The court itself, in its decision subject to appeal to the Supreme Court, makes this point with unusual clarity. In a passage that those proclaiming victory have conspicuously ignored, the judgment states verbatim that “that same freedom of expression and information [granted to the AEVTJ] is also enjoyed by the religious denomination itself [the Jehovah’s Witnesses], both through its most institutional representatives and through any believer, to explain or defend its beliefs, practices, and traditions, and to refute, if necessary, with complete freedom, the criticisms received—all the more so in today’s society, where there are various media outlets, social networks, and digital resources to express opinions freely.” The court then adds a description of Jehovah’s Witnesses: “In fact, it is also well known that Jehovah’s Witnesses are entirely peaceful citizens, as they are forbidden to take up arms against another human being; they do not engage in conflict within society; and they promote behaviors that are highly beneficial to humanity, such as a strong work ethic, family care, abstinence from drugs, and very limited alcohol consumption. All these virtues, from which Spanish society also benefits, can be expressed publicly in the same way by the denomination or by the faithful themselves.”
These lines alone should suffice to dispel the notion that the court validated the AEVTJ’s accusations en bloc. The court was not called to endorse the claim that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a “destructive cult,” nor to affirm the truth of allegations concerning shunning, psychological coercion, or the concealment of sexual abuse. What it held was something far more technical: that “although it may be annoying and deeply hurtful, the Association’s existence must be tolerated,” as its criticism remains within the limits of freedom of expression. The thema decidendum was tolerance, not truth; the legal question was whether the AEVTJ’s speech exceeded the limits of Article 20 of the Constitution, not whether its accusations were factually correct.
This distinction is essential. Spanish constitutional doctrine, as interpreted by the courts, allows a wide margin for speech on matters of public interest, even when such speech is exaggerated, inaccurate, or upsetting. The appeal court followed this line, relying heavily on the concept of “veracity” understood not as factual truth but as the existence of some factual basis—however partial or contested—sufficient to shield the speaker from liability. It is a doctrine long criticized for its potential to shield defamatory generalizations, and the present case illustrates its weaknesses.
The judgment’s reasoning is also open to criticism when examined in light of European Court of Human Rights case law. The court cites decisions such as “Giniewski,” “McCann,” and “Paturel,” but it does so selectively, overlooking the parts of those judgments that impose limits on sweeping generalizations about religious minorities. It dismisses the relevance of “Zemmour v. France” on the ground that the AEVTJ acknowledged that “good people” exist among Jehovah’s Witnesses, a distinction that does not withstand scrutiny: the association’s statutes and website attribute systematic violations of human rights to the denomination as such, which necessarily stigmatizes its entire membership. The ECtHR has repeatedly held that such generalizations require careful judicial assessment because of their capacity to arouse prejudice.
The court also fails to engage with the ECtHR’s landmark judgment in “Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia,” which examined in detail the very practices—internal discipline, shunning, blood transfusion refusals, preaching, hierarchical governance—that the AEVTJ characterizes as harmful or abusive. In “Taganrog”, the ECtHR held that these practices are lawful exercises of religious freedom protected by Articles 9, 10, and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Spanish court, however, accepted as “veracious” a narrative that treats these same practices as inherently abusive, without acknowledging that the ECtHR has already rejected such characterizations when advanced by state authorities.
Equally problematic is the court’s reliance on the testimonies of disgruntled former members (technically called “apostates” to distinguish them from the majority of ex-members, who do not become militant critics of the organization they have left) as the primary factual basis for its “veracity” finding. Personal experiences—often painful, sometimes traumatic—deserve respect, but they cannot, without independent corroboration and statistical studies, sustain sweeping claims about systematic institutional wrongdoing. The ECtHR has consistently required a more rigorous evidentiary standard when allegations strike at the dignity of an entire religious community. The appeal court’s approach risks collapsing the distinction between individual grievances and organizational guilt.
Finally, the judgment’s invocation of categories such as “spiritual abuse” raises concerns. While such concepts may have a place in pastoral counseling or internal church discourse, they become problematic when imported into legal reasoning without a clear definition. The ECtHR has warned against vague or subjective categories that allow courts to pathologize religious practices simply because they differ from majority expectations. Suggesting that certain religious norms may constitute “psychological abuse” undermines the very neutrality and impartiality that Article 9 of the Convention requires of the state. The European Court of Human Rights stated in 2010 in the case “Jehovah’s Witnesses of Moscow and Others vs Russia” that “there is no generally accepted and scientific definition of what constitutes ‘mind control.’” It noted that behaviors often cited as evidence of coercion by the Jehovah’s Witnesses—intense commitment, deference to leaders, communal living, enthusiastic proselytism—are common across many religious traditions.
None of these criticisms changes the fact that the court’s decision concerned freedom of expression, not the moral or theological evaluation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. To portray the judgment as a judicial condemnation of the religion in itself is to misread it entirely. The court explicitly acknowledges the denomination’s peaceful character and the positive contributions of its members. It simply concluded—rightly or wrongly—that the AEVTJ’s speech, however harsh, is based on testimonies by former members reported by several media and thus passes the test of “veracity” and falls within the broad protection afforded to public criticism in a democratic society.
Whether this interpretation of freedom of expression is convincing or whether it adequately protects the dignity and reputation of religious minorities is a separate question, and one I would personally answer negatively. A different issue is that the judgment does not say what some commentators claim it does. It does not declare Jehovah’s Witnesses an evil organization. It does not deny the denomination’s legal status or its social contributions. It merely holds that, in the current legal framework, the anti-cult association’s statements must be “tolerated.”
And tolerance, as the court itself reminds us, is not endorsement.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
