Routine harassment of Jehovah's Witnesses reported

[Guest Kurt]

ACTION OF LAW DOES NOT EXTEND TO POLICE AND FSB OF STAVROPOL TERRITORY
Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 22 September 2016
 
Early in the morning of 20 September 2016, armed agents of law enforcement bodies in masks conducted a series of searches in houses of worship and private homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in Stavropol territory and Karachay-Cherkesia.
 
In Nezlobnaia station, agents of law enforcement bodies burst into a house of worship, after having blocked the entry doors and smashed several internal doors. After refusing entry to a representative of the owner, they conducted a search, during which they planted in the building books that are included in the list of extremist materials. After this they prudently dismantled and removed video surveillance equipment. They did not show believers a search warrant or a police report.
 
Simultaneously a search was conducted in the home of the chairman of the local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Pavel Puzyrev, and also in the home of his parents. Armed agents of law enforcement bodies in masks jumped over the fence and, entering the building, they dispersed among the rooms, planting forbidden literature. It is noteworthy that on 12 September 2016, Puzyrev was the victim of a provocation: unidentified persons pasted false posters in academic institutions with a call for prayer and following the true path and also with the telephone number of the house of worship of Jehovah's Witnesses and P. Puzyrev personally.
 
The congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in the station of Nezlobnaia has existed since the late 1960s. Believers of the older generation note that the last search in their homes was conducted in 1985.
 
A search also was conducted in the house of worship of Jehovah's Witnesses in the city of Piatigorsk.
 
Reports of searches have come in also from the village of Mednogorsk of Karachay-Cherkesia. A search was conducted in the home of one of the believers, involving police and the FSB. It has been impossible to contact the woman.
 
The Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia is following the development of the situation. Previously, on 24 August 2016 in the city of Budennovsk of Stavropol territory a group of persons in civilian clothing entered the premises where a Jehovah's Witnesses worship service was being conducted and demanded that it cease. Representatives of law enforcement dispersed among the rooms for conducting a search, after which they "found" several publications from the Federal List of Extremist Materials in various parts of the building. 

 

[Guest Kurt]

Flimsy grounds for banning Jehovah's Witnesses

JUDGE FOR YOURSELF. ARE THEY REALLY GUILTY?
jw-ru.blogspot, 20 September 2016
 
The Federal List of Extremist Organizations on the official website of the Ministry of Justice has been up-dated. Two religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses were added to the list: No. 50, Local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses of the city of Stary Oskol; No. 51, Local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses of the city of Belgorod.
 
Unfortunately the judicial bodies were unable to investigate impartially the baselessness of the accusations against the Jehovah's Witnesses. This casts doubt on the grounds on which the religious organizations were found to be extremist.
 
For example, the Supreme Court of the Russian federation liquidated the religious society of Jehovah's Witnesses in Stary Oskol, upholding the decision of the Belgorod court regarding termination of the activity of the religious organization for distribution of the Bible. Amazingly, judicial instances found extremist a Bible in which there was printed an address of the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses. At the time when the Bible with this address was printed, the website of the Jehovah's Witnesses had not yet been included in the list of extremist materials. However later the website was banned without comparing the date of the publication of the Bible with the address to the date of the ban of the Jehovah's Witnesses' website. And without then simply recommending the removal of this address from the Bible. The judicial instances found the whole Bible as extremist and the organization using this Bible also as extremist.
 
On one hand, the logic is very simple: if such an organization gives a reference to a forbidden source, this organization should be ruled extremist. But then another question arises. What about such large organizations as Yandex, Google, Rambler, and Mail.ru that also give links to a so-called forbidden website?  As an illustrative example, let's type into Yandex, for comparison, "Official site of Jehovah's Witnesses." One does not have to wait long and one million hits were found.
 
That raises the next question. If the Jehovah's Witnesses are found to have in the Bible only one reference to a forbidden website and on this basis the organization in Stary Oskol was found to be extremist, then will the organization under the name of Yandex, which gives a million such links to its users, be found to be extremist?
 
The other religious organization, located in the city of Belgorod, was liquidated for distribution of a forbidden brochure. But it is paradoxical that this brochure was distributed not by a Jehovah's Witness but by a man unknown to them. The Jehovah's Witnesses tried to explain this in court, but the court of the first instance made a decision that was not in the Jehovah's Witnesses' favor. Then the believers tried to protest the original decision in higher instances, but without results.
 
One observer of what happened commented on this. He gave an illustrative example with tableware that is used by many people throughout the world. Such items as a fork or table knife are not only useful implements but sometimes are simply necessary for getting food. But let's imagine that some man, as the result of improper use of tableware, causes harm to somebody or further may even kill someone with the table knife or fork. Who should bear the punishment for such a situation? The one who used tableware improperly or the one who made it? Common sense dictates that the one who used the tableware improperly bears the responsibility.
 
The situation with the Jehovah's Witnesses in Belgorod looks like this. Unknown persons, possibly ill-wishers, distributed a forbidden publication. But it is strange that the punishment for this was borne not by the person committing the violation of law but by the religious organization that is not guilty of anything. The Jehovah's Witnesses hope that at some time justice will prevail. History has shown more than once that Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted similarly without basis both in fascist Germany and in the Soviet Union.
 
Although the prohibition of several religious organizations in Russia has in itself created some difficulties for believers, the Jehovah's Witnesses are pleased that the Russian constitution protects the rights of all believers, granting to them full right to share their convictions as Article 28 proclaims:  "Each person is guaranteed freedom of conscience and freedom of religious confession, including the right to profess individually or jointly with others any religion or not to profess any, and to freely choose, hold, and disseminate religious and other convictions and to act in accordance with them."

[Guest Kurt]

Critics of anti-evangelism law propose interpretations

MISSION OF CLARIFICATION
The Public Chamber of the Russian federation will work out instructions for applying standards on missionary activity
by Olga Nikitina
Kommersant, 21 September 2016
 
The part of the "Yarovaya Package" that regulates missionary activity needs additional instructions on its implementation, the Public Chamber of the Russian federation thinks. Representatives of religious organizations state that in the two months of the law's working, dozens of precedents when law enforcement agencies have given an incorrect assessment of the actions of citizens have accumulated, by arresting them for "missionary activity.  The office of the prosecutor general considers the chamber's conclusions to be premature for now.
 
On Tuesday a hearing was held in the Public Chamber on the question of the practice of enforcement of the federal law "On introducing changes into the federal law 'On combating terrorism' and individual legislative acts of the Russian federation for establishing additional measures of combating terrorism and guaranteeing public security" with respect to missionary activity. Members of the Public Chamber and representatives of religious organizations again focused their attention on shortcomings of the law regulating missionary activity and urged the working out of methodological recommendations and of clarification of the wording of the law for law enforcers. "In two months there already are nine precedents that we characterize as the practice of law enforcement in the sphere of interpretation and implementation of the amendments to the law on freedom of conscience and another number of laws," Bishop Konstantin Bendas, the first deputy of the ruling bishop administering the Russian Associated Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals), declared. Mr. Bendas said that the last of such cases occurred a few days ago in Kaluga, where three foreign citizens with tourist visas were in attendance for a celebration in the church. They were arrested and fined 3,000 rubles each, without deportation, with the wording "establishing illegal religious contacts." "What this means, I do not know, and nobody knows, and the law does not provide an answer," Konstantin Bendas reported. He also noted that the amendments on missionary activity equate evangelism with extremism and terrorism to some extent.
 
The deputy director of the Chief Directorate for Combating Extremism of the MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs], Vladimir Makarov, stated that "those persons whose activity is not aimed against our people and our motherland have nothing to fear," and he noted the value of the law: "In our country not long ago if someone wanted something then he spoke, and we recall well what that led to. Thirty-seven hundred of our people are already in the IGIL ("Islamic State," an organization banned in Russia—Kommersant), and more than 200 (of those who returned—Kommersant) have already been convicted. This also is the result of missionary activity of particular comrades."
 
Vsevolod Chaplin, a member of the Public Chamber, also spoke in favor of the law. "Today war is being conducted not only on the field of battle, but also on a unified field. Such dangers as conspiracies, coups, and the so-called color revolutions may be conducted through religious channels, among others."
 
Several Public Chamber members recalled, not without regret, the precedent of a court decision of acquittal. Vadim Sibirev became one of the first to be accused of violation of the law on freedom of conscience, freedom of religious confession, and on religious associations (article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Violations of Law) because the young man discussed religion (Vishnaism) on one of the streets of Cherkessk, but he was not punished. "One should figure it out; in Cherkessk, in a Cossack city! It is all the same as if someone began engaging in the dissemination and agitation of Islam beside the Wailing Wall," Archpriest Alexander Pelin declared. (Cherkessk is the capital of the Karachay-Cherkess republic, of which the majority of the population consists of Muslims.) The amendments pertaining to evangelism themselves Mr. Pelin calls mild, but he also sees the necessity of developing instructions on their implementation and also of the creation of professional standards for specialists in religious and inter-ethnic relations: "It is entirely insufficient to prepare a letter with recommendations. It will be sent to some comrade and who has taught him to understand it?" According to Alexander Nenashev, the deputy director of the Directorate for Strengthening National Unity and Preventing Extremism on Ethnic and Religious Grounds of the Federal Agency for Affairs of Nationalities, a draft of new professional standards has already been sent to the Ministry of Labor, in early September.
 
The lawyers treated with skepticism an initiative for developing methodological recommendations. "The laws do not establish primary concepts. They should be clearly and precisely established by the parliament, because law enforcement agencies will be obedient only to the parliament," maintains the head of the legal service Paraclete, Irina Chepurnaia. "Law enforcers, as a rule, are not guided in practice by any methodological recommendations and clarifications on a level lower than the Constitutional Court."
 
The prosecutor of the Department of Management of Monitoring  Compliance with Laws on Federal Security, Inter-ethnic Relations, and Combating Extremism and Terrorism of the office of the prosecutor general, Tatiana Lazareva, considers that analyzing the practice of implementation of the law two months after it took effect is premature: "At least a year should go by."
 
Amendments to the law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations" that regulate missionary activity were a part of the so-called Yarovaya Package, a collection of amendments introduced by State Duma deputy Irina Yarovaya and Senator Viktor Ozerov, aimed, in the intention of lawmakers, at the strengthening of national security and signed by the president on 7 July. 

[Guest Kurt]

Anti-evangelism law used against foreigners who speak in church

PRAYER IS NOT FOR TOURISTS

Two Americans fined for "religious contacts"

by Roman Lunkin

Religiia i Pravo, 15 September 2016

 

On 10 September 2016, two American citizens, Alexandra Whitney and David Kozan, along with their minor daughter, Catherine, were arrested in Kaluga. The result of a five-hour interrogation was a police report according to which Whitney and Kozan were fined 3,000 rubles each, without deportation from Russia, for administrative violation of law.

 

The Americans were traveling as tourists, but they decided to worship a bit, as they are protestant Pentecostals and friends of the Kaluga "Word of Life" church of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) and its leader, Bishop Albert Ratkin. Local authorities have been trying for more than ten years now to take away from this church the building of the church of Christ the Savior on Nebesnaia [Heavenly] Street.

 

On 9 to 11 September 2016, a conference was held in the house of worship of this church (the church of Christ the Savior of Kaluga), which was devoted to the 80th anniversary of the Pentecostal church in Kaluga. Believers reckon that their congregation, and the Pentecostal movement in Kaluga as a whole, were established in 1936 by one of the famous leaders of the protestant movement in Russia, Ivan Voronaev, who was in exile here.

 

The American citizens Whitney and Kozan greeted their fellow believers and watched a film and historical drama about the life and ministry of Ivan Voronaev. The worship service also was attended by Sergei Riakhovsky, the bishop of the Russian Associated Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) and member of the Public Chamber of the RF.

 

Without a doubt, the foreign guests were not simply Americans who dropped in on the church. David Kozan is an engineer who in the 1990s served four years as a missionary in Russia. Alexandra Whitney is a high school teacher. However the fact that they had preached in Russia does not make them flawed or suspicious people.

 

The bishop of the Kaluga church of Christ the Savior, Albert Ratkin, said that around 22.00 [10:00 p.m] on 10 September 2016, the Americans were met outside the gates of the house of worship by several security officers and agents of the FSB. District Police Major Sergei Dokukov confiscated the passports of the American citizens and gave them back only after they threatened to summon the consul. Representatives of the church note that not only the officer but also the police translator identified themselves as law enforcement agents: "David Kozan tried to make a joke that he had already seen such night-time interrogations and such treatment of people in a movie. The translator rendered this as if he had asked to be shown a movie."

 

At 2:00 a.m. police Lieutenant Vladimir Grenkov composed a statement about administrative violation of the laws on entry into the country and "establishment of religious contacts." In it he noted that these "religious contacts" were conducted by the Americans on 10 September from 16.00 to 21.00, although they had arrived on a tourist visa. The lieutenant declared that he had a secret recording of the "religious contacts" by the American citizens from a private informant, whom he did not allow the accused to meet.

 

As Vladimir Riakhovsky, an attorney and member of the presidential Council on Human Rights of the RF, notes, American citizens have the full right of participation in worship services of the evangelical church in Kaluga. Freedom of confession of one's faith is guaranteed on the territory of Russia by the constitution of the RF to all, both Russian citizens and foreigners. Participation in a worship service, and even greetings delivered in the church, do not in any way violate the visa system, the rules of visiting on a tourist visa. Otherwise, Vladimir Riakhovsky says, it turns out that foreigners coming to Russia are not permitted to enter Russian churches and worship. And foreign citizens who have received a humanitarian visa and permission for missionary activity, are not permitted to get on a tourist bus and engage in tourism. By such logic it turns out that people coming, for example, on a business visa are not permitted to visit tourist attractions and to worship. However this is an absurd conclusion that contradicts the spirit and letter of the Russian constitution and the law on freedom of conscience.

 

Due to the amendment about missionary activity within the context of the Yarovaya Package, a special ideology of the new legislation has begun to be formulated. First of all, any preaching, prayer, or conversation about God have fallen under suspicion that has always been noted by rights advocates as the natural consequence of a system of fines for preaching. As a result, the law has been applied in practice extremely broadly and has, in fact, crossed the boundaries of the Yarovaya Package. For reasons known only to law enforcement agencies, any religious activity of foreign citizens has come to be considered actually illegal. A characteristic example: on 14 September, a Kemerovo court fined a Ukrainian citizen 30 thousand rubles, for speaking at a meeting of a Pentecostal church. While she was specifically followed and her sermon was recorded on video, they could arrest her only at a traffic checkpoint on the way to the airport.

 

Informants, secret recordings, and chases have appeared in religious life. One would like to know why it is Christian preaching that provokes such attempts to employ all these espionage skills.

[Evacuated]

https://www.jw.org/en/news/releases/by-region/russia/anti-extremism-law-part1/