A Turn for the Worse

While the situation remained calm for most of 1963 and 1964, word was received of a letter to all police officials advising them that Jehovah’s Witnesses had been banned and should be arrested. Another blow came on January 25, 1965. A press release announced that the Watch Tower Society was illegal. Yet, doubts surfaced about whether this was official. In this atmosphere a circuit assembly was arranged in Tanga for April 2-4, 1965.

A hall was booked, arrangements for accommodations were made, and a large number of Witnesses came by train from sisal estates. On the way they preached to fellow passengers, one of them being a policeman. On arrival, he had all the Witnesses arrested and carted off to the police station, but they were soon released.

On April 3, the second day of the assembly, a radio announcement said that the government had banned the work of Jehovah’s Witnesses and all associated legal bodies. Nevertheless, the assembly was completed without incident. No announcement of the ban appeared in the official government gazette. News came from neighboring Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) and Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) that the ban had been announced and afterward withdrawn. This was confirmed by Reuters, the news agency. But the inevitable finally happened. On June 11, 1965, the government gazette issued a notice that the Watch Tower Society and all associated legal bodies had been declared unlawful.

Now the police became more alert, and attempts to hold a circuit assembly in the south of the country failed. A few scattered arrests followed. At times literature was seized, but occasionally it was returned. The brothers found it wiser to meet in small groups. In places where religious missionaries from Christendom egged on the police, the situation grew more tense.

What a surprise to receive a telegram from the brothers in Dar es Salaam, six months after the official ban, saying that the International Bible Students Association had been registered under the Companies Ordinance on January 6, 1966. Yet, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Watch Tower Society remained banned. On November 24, 1966, a government notice stated that the International Bible Students Association had been dissolved as a company because of failure of its congregations to obtain registration under the Societies Ordinance.