Footnote

b As a general policy, when taken to court because of witnessing, Jehovah’s Witnesses appealed their cases instead of paying fines. If a case was lost on appeal, then, instead of paying the fine, they went to jail, if allowed to do so by law. The persistent refusal of the Witnesses to pay fines helped to discourage some officials from continuing to interfere with their witnessing activity. While this policy may still be followed under some circumstances, The Watchtower of April 1, 1975, showed that in many cases a fine could properly be viewed as a judicial penalty, so paying it would not be an admission of guilt, just as going to jail would not prove one’s guilt.