Fern Noboa also came to Ecuador in 1948. Today Sister Noboa continues to serve with her family in a country she has made her home. Looking back, she recalls: “In the Magdalena section of Quito, the priest would ride through the streets on his bicycle and round up his mob to chase us away. At least once we were ‘rocked’ out of the territory.”

Under Attack

The zealous kingdom-witnessing activity did not go unnoticed. Other religious elements became concerned. Strangely, this initial unrest came, not from the Catholic Church, which claims to represent 95 percent of the populace, but from a Protestant evangelical group. But attacks on the Witnesses in the official evangelistic magazine aroused the interest of thinking people, many of whom ultimately embraced true Christianity.

The Roman Catholic Church was not to remain noncommittal. In 1951 mob violence broke out in Quito. However, Jehovah’s people took immediate action to ‘defend and legally establish the good news.’ (Philippians 1:7) Article 168 of Ecuador’s Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience in all its aspects and manifestations, including the free exercise of a person’s chosen religion.

Quito’s leading newspaper championed the Witnesses’ right to freedom of worship. Warnings to the clergy were issued by government authorities, and the clergyman responsible for the mob was humiliated into saying he would see that there was no recurrence of such action.

Some priests apparently felt that they were an authority in themselves, and before long there was more mob action against Jehovah’s Witnesses. Further appeals to the competent government authorities resulted in a cable from the Ministry of Government on December 3, 1952. It specified that Witness missionaries should be provided “due protection” from violent attacks. Filed in the offices of all the provincial governors in the country, this cable stands to this day as the official attitude regarding the legal standing of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Compliance with the law is another matter. Within two years, a mob of 200 attacked an assembly of Jehovah’s people in Riobamba. Again the clergy’s efforts boomeranged, however, for newspapers throughout the country championed the Witnesses’ right to freedom of worship.