In 1998, The Watchtower reported that, “On March 8, 1996, the Supreme Court of Japan [ruled that] … Kobe Municipal Industrial Technical College violated the law by expelling Kunihito Kobayashi for his refusal to participate in martial arts training.”^[16][17]

According to Awake!, “Misae Takeda, a Jehovah’s Witness, was given [a] blood transfusion in 1992, while still under sedation following surgery to remove a malignant tumor of the liver.” On February 29, 2000, “the four judges of the Supreme Court unanimously decided that doctors were at fault because they failed to explain that they might give her a blood transfusion if deemed necessary during the operation, thus depriving her of the right to decide whether to accept the operation or not.”^[18][19]