Jehovah's Witnesses tax demand 'unfair'

THE European Court of Human Rights has ruled that France had violated the religious rights of Jehovah's Witnesses by demanding more than €57.5 million in taxes the church says it is exempt from paying.

France considers Jehovah's Witnesses a dangerous sect, not religion, and ordered it in 1999 to pay back taxes on donations it received between 1993 and 1996 from its 250,000 members in the country.