Charter
POSWatch is a public registry documenting clergy, missionaries, and preachers whose public ministry includes coercion, incitement, or threat-based "love." Defense and record, not vengeance.
Harm-to-person standard
Every entry must document harm to a person — not regulatory violations, not theological disagreement, not private belief. The subject must hold a religious authority role and operate in a public ministry, and the conduct must fall under one of fourteen categories.
In scope
- Faith-healing deaths (esp. minors), exorcism injuries, religiously-justified abuse
- Forced or child marriage officiating
- Sexual abuse of minors by clergy
- Sexual exploitation of adult congregants and counselees
- Conversion therapy
- Coercive control with material consequence (custody, employment, housing)
- Prosperity-gospel fraud and faith-healing as commercial enterprise
- Financial exploitation, elderly estate capture
- Crime under religious cover (drugs, trafficking, money laundering, weapons, tax fraud)
- Holy war declarations
- Apostasy threats / fatwas
- Sectarian incitement leading to documented harm
- Cross-border incitement (sermons in jurisdiction A producing violence in jurisdiction B)
- Coverup of any of the above
Out of scope
- Private religious belief, however unpleasant
- Theological disagreement
- Personal grudges absent documented public conduct
- Hellfire rhetoric alone, without material coercion or named-target incitement
- Political endorsement standalone — only in scope when paired with coercion or incitement
Evidentiary floor
- Primary source required: recorded sermon, court filing, news report with named sources, organizational document, published writing
- Direct quote, not paraphrase
- Citation required: case number, outlet+date, document title+date
- Submitter attestation under sworn filing OR anonymous tip with reduced weight (25%)
- Doctrine vs. incitement line: abstract doctrine is out; named target plus call to action is in
Sectarian neutrality
The same evidentiary methodology applies across all faiths. Distribution of entries by tradition is not a balance target — but a transparent methodology lets any tradition challenge selective targeting on the merits.
Right of reply
The named subject, their organization, family, or legal counsel may submit a rebuttal attached to the entry. Same evidentiary rules apply. Engine displays entry and rebuttal together. No silent deletion — withdrawals require a counter-entry.
Trust act
Every entry, rebuttal, approval, and withdrawal is hash-chained to NDJSON ledger, SHA-256-canonicalized, and OpenTimestamp-anchored. Permanence is not a side-effect; it is the point.