Matthew 5:11
Matthew 5:1111Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
is one of the JW proof-texts for treating persecution as evidence of being God's true people. The Russian Supreme Court's 2017 ban on Jehovah's Witnesses, the Nazi persecution of Witnesses in concentration camps, and various national restrictions are cited as fulfilment of Jesus's promise. The reasoning is: Jesus said his disciples would be persecuted; Witnesses are persecuted; therefore Witnesses are Jesus's true disciples.
Stand in solidarity with persecuted Witnesses — the Russian ban is a real religious-freedom violation and Christians of every tradition should oppose it. Then gently introduce the logical point: persecution is not a unique mark of one true religion. Mormons were violently persecuted in nineteenth-century America; Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned in China; Iranian converts from Islam face execution; North Korean Christians worship in hiding. By the JW logic, all of them would be Jesus's true disciples — and they cannot all be. Pair with (the Bereans tested apostolic teaching against Scripture, not against persecution records) and ("all those desiring to live with godly devotion in association with Christ Jesus will also be persecuted"). Persecution is a feature of the Christian life across traditions — not a validation of one organisation's exclusive doctrinal claims.