I live in the USA and there are JW's here, and the government isn't trying to stop them. They have buildings, meetings, pass literature. The laws here allow people to practice religion. We have many different religious groups here.
The history of Jehovah's Witnesses from its start in the United States was done with persecution from the State usually at the behest of the Church. In it's early years the United States tried banning their preaching work, throwing the prominent members of the group into prison on trumped up false charges, and harassing them.
From a Wikipedia article on the Supreme Court cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses:
"In the
United States, numerous cases involving Jehovah's Witnesses are now landmark decisions of
First Amendment law. In all, Jehovah's Witnesses brought 23 separate First Amendment actions before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1938 and 1946.[
citation needed]
Supreme Court Justice
Harlan Fiske Stone once quipped, "I think the Jehovah's Witnesses ought to have an endowment in view of the aid which they give in solving the legal problems of civil liberties."
[29]"
That there was collusion between the Church and State to try and ban, and even put to death members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, that went so far as to change the Espionage Act targeting the group to try and ban their work and get them thrown into prison (and the clergy hoped putting them to death if possible) in the United States:
"During this period of nationalistic fervor, a conference of clergymen was held in Philadelphia, in the United States, at which a resolution was adopted calling for revision of the Espionage Act so that alleged violators could be tried by court-martial and subjected to the death penalty. John Lord O’Brian, special assistant to the attorney general for war work, was selected to present the matter to the Senate. The president of the United States did not permit that bill to become law. But Major-General James Franklin Bell, of the U.S. Army, in the heat of anger divulged to J. F. Rutherford and W. E. Van Amburgh what had occurred at the conference and the intent to use that bill against the officers of the Watch Tower Society.
Official U.S. government files show that at least from February 21, 1918, onward, John Lord O’Brian was personally involved in efforts to build a case against the Bible Students. The Congressional Record of April 24 and May 4 contains memos from John Lord O’Brian in which he argued strongly that if the law allowed for utterance of “what is true, with good motives, and for justifiable ends,” as stated in the so-called France Amendment to the Espionage Act and as had been endorsed by the U.S. Senate, he could not successfully prosecute the Bible Students.
In Worcester, Massachusetts, “Rev.” B. F. Wyland further exploited the war fever by asserting that the Bible Students were carrying on propaganda for the enemy. He published an article in the
Daily Telegram in which he declared: “One of your patriotic duties that confronts you as citizens is the suppression of the International Bible Students Association, with headquarters in Brooklyn. They have, under the guise of religion, been carrying on German propaganda in Worcester by selling their book, ‘The Finished Mystery.’” He bluntly told the authorities it was their duty to arrest the Bible Students and prevent them from holding further meetings.
The spring and summer of 1918 witnessed widespread persecution of the Bible Students, both in North America and in Europe. Among the instigators were clergymen of Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and other churches. Bible literature was seized by officers without a search warrant, and many of the Bible Students were thrown into jail. Others were chased by mobs, beaten, whipped, tarred and feathered, or had their ribs broken or their heads cut. Some were permanently maimed. Christian men and women were held in jail without charge or without trial. Over one hundred specific instances of such outrageous treatment were reported in
The Golden Age of September 29, 1920." -
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101993040
That the clergy of Christendom was behind the court instigated actions against Jehovah's Witnesses:
"Was all of this really instigated by the clergy? John Lord O’Brian denied it. But the facts were well-known by those who lived at that time. On March 22, 1919,
Appeal to Reason, a newspaper published at Girard, Kansas, protested: “Followers of Pastor Russell, Pursued by Malice of ‘Orthodox’ Clergy, Were Convicted and Jailed Without Bail, Though They Made Every Effort That Was Possible to Comply with the Provisions of Espionage Law. . . . We declare that, regardless of whether or not the Espionage Act was technically constitutional or ethically justifiable, these followers of Pastor Russell were wrongfully convicted under its provisions. An open-minded study of the evidence will speedily convince any one that these men not only had no intention of violating the law, but that they did not violate it.”
Years later, in the book
Preachers Present Arms, Dr. Ray Abrams observed: “It is significant that so many clergymen took an aggressive part in trying to get rid of the Russellites [as the Bible Students were derogatorily labeled]. Long-lived religious quarrels and hatreds, which did not receive any consideration in the courts in time of peace, now found their way into the courtroom under the spell of war-time hysteria.” He also stated: “An analysis of the whole case leads to the conclusion that the churches and the clergy were originally behind the movement to stamp out the Russellites.”—Pp. 183-5."
There is so much information that it would take me a very long time to go into details. The link above though is a good start.
