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April 4, 2017

UNITED NATIONS RIGHTS EXPERTS URGE RUSSIA TO DROP JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES LAWSUIT WHICH THREATENS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

4 April 2017

GENEVA (4 April 2017) – Moves by the Russian Government to ban the activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses using a lawsuit brought under anti-extremism legislation have been condemned as “extremely worrying” by three United Nations human rights experts*.

“This lawsuit is a threat not only to Jehovah’s Witnesses, but to individual freedom in general in the Russian Federation,” the experts said.

“The use of counter-extremism legislation in this way to confine freedom of opinion, including religious belief, expression and association to that which is state-approved is unlawful and dangerous, and signals a dark future for all religious freedom in Russia,” they stressed.

The condemnation follows a lawsuit lodged at the country’s Supreme Court on 15 March to declare the Jehovah’s Witnesses Administrative Centre ‘extremist’, to liquidate it, and to ban its activity.

A suspension order came into effect on that date, preventing the Administrative Centre and all its local religious centres from using state and municipal news media, and from organizing and conducting assemblies, rallies and other public events.

A full court hearing is scheduled for 5 April and if the Supreme Court rules in favour of the authorities, it will be the first such ruling by a court declaring a registered centralized religious organization to be ‘extremist’.

Concerns about the counter-extremism legislation have previously been raised in a communication by the three experts to the Russian authorities on 28 July 2016.

The Suspension Order imposed on 15 March is the latest in a series of judicial cases and orders, including a warning sent to the organization last year referring to the ‘inadmissibility of extremist activity’. This has already led to the dissolution of several local Jehovah’s Witness organizations, raids against their premises and literature being confiscated.

“We urge the authorities to drop the lawsuit in compliance with their obligations under international human rights law, and to revise the counter-extremism legislation and its implementation to avoid fundamental human rights abuses,” the UN experts concluded.

(*) The experts: Mr. David Kaye (USA), Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Mr. Maina Kiai (Kenya), Special Rapporteur on freedoms of peaceful assembly and of association, and Mr. Ahmed Shaheed (the Maldives), Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.

The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

UN Human Rights, country page: Russian Federation

For more information and media requests please contact Ms. Azin Tadjdini (+41 22 917 9400 / atadjdini@ohchr.org)

For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts:
Xabier Celaya, UN Human Rights – Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 / xcelaya@ohchr.org)

You can access this media advisory online

Tag and share - Twitter: @UNHumanRights and Facebook: unitednationshumanrights

For use of the information media; not an official record

HR17.109E

April 4, 2017

RUSSIA

Russian Supreme Court Considers Outlawing Jehovah's Witness Worship

Elizabeth Dias

10:54 AM ET

The Russian Supreme Court could declare the Jehovah's Witnesses an extremist organization in a Wednesday hearing, a move that would lead to the seizure of the church's headquarters near St. Petersburg and the outlawing of the group’s organized worship.

In advance of the hearing, international concern has grown. “If the Supreme Court rules in favour of the authorities, it will be the first such ruling by a court declaring a registered centralized religious organization to be ‘extremist,’” the UN human rights’ high commissioner's office said in a statement on Tuesday.

The ruling would also cap off years of increased restrictions by the Russian Federation against minority religions. Last summer, Russia introduced an anti-terrorism law that also restricted evangelism, and a regional court ordered the deportation of six missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 2015, a court banned the Church of Scientology’s Moscow branch.

Under a Russian law passed in 1997, there is freedom of religion, but four faiths are designated to be traditional—Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism—and other religious organizations must register with the government. Some groups, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are registered, still face bureaucratic and legal hurdles. Jehovah's Witness leaders estimate that there are 175,000 Russian-based adherents to the faith, which was founded in the United States the 1870s. Unlike Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is the son of God but do not believe in the Trinity.

“They would basically be prosecuting Jehovah’s Witnesses as criminals,” David Semonian, international spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, says of the pending court declaration. “Anyone who would actually would have our publications could be criminalized. It is of great concern.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses have filed a counter claim asking the court to rule the Justice Ministry’s actions as political repression. A ruling in favor of the ministry would make it a crime for Jehovah’s Witnesses to worship in the Russian Federation and dissolve the faith’s legal means to own or rent Kingdom Halls, their places of worship. In 2015, the Russian Federation banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ website JW.org, and customs officials stopped shipments of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Bibles, citing the possibility they were extremist literature. Last year, Russia threatened to close the group’s national headquarters.

Roman Lunkin, a human rights fellow at the Wilson Center and an expert on church-state relations in Russia, says that Russian authorities have been targeting minority religions as “extremists” in an effort to demonstrate support for the Russian Orthodox Church and to marginalize organizations with suspected pro-western sympathies. "The treatment of the Jehovah’s Witnesses reflects the Russian government’s tendency to view all independent religious activity as a threat to its control and the country’s political stability," the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses are no threat to either the Russian Orthodox Church or to the Russian Government,” Semonian says. “The constitution guarantees freedom of worship, and that is all we are asking, to have the same rights as other religious groups have so we can go about our ministry in a peaceful way.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses are pacifists, and their religious beliefs require them to abstain from political activity. They declare allegiance only to God, not to a state or political entity. They do not vote, lobby, protest, or join military. This lack of participation can be seen as a threat if a state demands nationalist and patriotic activity.

“The persecution of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is very much tied to the resurgence of a new view of nationalism, where everything within the state is fine, but anything outside of the state has to be crushed,” Kristina Arriaga de Bucholz, a U.S. commissioner for International Religious Freedom appointed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, says. “A pacifist group that tells its members that their allegiance is to something outside of the government is immediately a group that will be perceived as dangerous to the regime.”

Other minority Christian groups in Russia, like evangelicals, have not yet faced the same level of scrutiny. Lunkin says it is impossible to accuse evangelicals of extremist activity because their literature and Bible translation matches that of the Russian Orthodox Church. Jehovah’s Witnesses have their own translation of the Bible, and they also have their own magazine and educational materials. Evangelicals also have closer relationships with government officials, he says. “It’s [about] a protection of traditional religions, and the Orthodox identity of Russian people,” Lunkin says. “But in fact it is about protecting personal power, because the main fear is changing of regimes in Russia.”

Jehovah’s Witness church leadership has reached out to the U.S. State department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the U.S. Helsinki Commission for aid. “We will do everything within our legal means to have the judgment reversed,” Semonian says. “Jehovah’s Witnesses are known worldwide for our peaceful activities, and under no circumstances would we ever resort to violence or any other activity that could be misunderstood or considered extremist.”

Jehovah’s Witness leaders have also asked their eight million members worldwide to write letters to Russia officials, including President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, to ask them to intervene. Instructions tell writers to “be candid but respectful,” and to mention how the faith has benefited their families. “Keep in mind that ‘a mild answer turns away rage,’ and ‘a gentle tongue can break a bone,’” the instructions say, quoting the Biblical book of Proverbs.

The decision will come as the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is finalizing its annual report identifying countries of concern, its first such report for the Trump administration. The Commission is a bipartisan government advisory group that makes policy recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Secretary of State.

Since 2009, the group has designated Russia as a “Tier 2” nation, on the watch list one step below countries of particular concern. “The fate of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is the fate of any religious group that does not pledge its allegiance to the Russian government,” Arriaga says. “April 5 will definitely mark a new chapter of religious persecution in post-Soviet Russia.”

The Librarian · April 4, 2017

Russia Moves to Ban Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘Extremist’

By ANDREW HIGGINS APRIL 4, 2017

Jehovah’s Witnesses gathered in a house in the village of Vorokhobino, north of Moscow, where they meet for services. CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

VOROKHOBINO, Russia — A dedicated pacifist who has never even held a gun, Andrei Sivak discovered that his government considered him a dangerous extremist when he tried to change some money and the teller “suddenly looked up at me with a face full of fear.”

His name had popped up on the exchangalee bureau’s computer system, along with those of members of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other militant groups responsible for shocking acts of violence.

The only group the 43-year-old father of three has ever belonged to, however, is Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination committed to the belief that the Bible must be taken literally, particularly its injunction “Thou shalt not kill.”

Yet, in a throwback to the days of the Soviet Union, when Jehovah’s Witnesses were hounded as spies and malcontents by the K.G.B., the denomination is at the center of an escalating campaign by the authorities to curtail religious groups that compete with the Russian Orthodox Church and that challenge President Vladimir V. Putin’s efforts to rally the country behind traditional and often militaristic patriotic values.

The Justice Ministry on Thursday put the headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, an office complex near St. Petersburg, on a list of the bodies banned “in connection with the carrying out of extremist activities.”

Last month, the ministry asked the Supreme Court to outlaw the religious organization and stop its more than 170,000 Russian members from spreading “extremist” texts. The court is scheduled to hear — and is likely to rule on — the case on Wednesday.

Extremism, as defined by a law passed in 2002 but amended and expanded several times since, has become a catchall charge that can be deployed against just about anybody, as it has been against some of those involved in recent anti-corruption protests in Moscow and scores of other cities.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses elders Vyacheslav Stepanov, 40, left, and Andrei Sivak, 43, are facing trial on charges of inciting division and hatred. CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

Several students who took part in demonstrations in the Siberian city of Tomsk are now being investigated by a special anti-extremism unit while Leonid Volkov, the senior aide to the jailed protest leader Aleksei A. Navalny, said he had himself been detained last week under the extremism law.

In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the putative extremism seems to derive mostly from the group’s absolute opposition to violence, a stand that infuriated Soviet and now Russian authorities whose legitimacy rests in large part on the celebration of martial triumphs, most notably over Nazi Germany in World War II but also over rebels in Syria.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of a denomination founded in the United States in the 19th century and active in Russia for more than 100 years, refuse military service, do not vote and view God as the only true leader. They shun the patriotic festivals promoted with gusto by the Kremlin, like the annual celebration of victory in 1945 and recent events to celebrate the annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

Mr. Sivak, who says he lost his job as a physical education teacher because of his role as a Jehovah’s Witnesses elder, said he had voted for Mr. Putin in 2000, three years before joining the denomination. He added that while he has not voted since, nor has he supported anti-Kremlin activities of the sort that usually attract the attention of Russia’s post-Soviet version of the K.G.B., the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B.

“I have absolutely no interest in politics,” he said during a recent Jehovah’s Witnesses Friday service in a wooden country house in Vorokhobino, a snow-covered village north of Moscow. Around 100 worshipers crammed into a long, chilly room under fluorescent lights to listen to readings from the Bible, sing and watch a video advising them to dress for worship as they would for a meeting with the president.

“From the Russian state’s perspective, Jehovah’s Witnesses are completely separate,” said Geraldine Fagan, the author of “Believing in Russia — Religious Policy After Communism.” She added, “They don’t get involved in politics, but this is itself seen as a suspicious political deviation.”

“The idea of independent and public religious activity that is completely outside the control of — and also indifferent to — the state sets all sorts of alarm bells ringing in the Orthodox Church and the security services,” she said.

That the worldwide headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses is in the United States and that its publications are mostly prepared there, Ms. Fagan added, “all adds up to a big conspiracy theory” for the increasingly assertive F.S.B.

Jehovah’s Witnesses arriving at a Friday evening service in Vorokhobino. CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

For Mr. Sivak, it has added up to a long legal nightmare. His troubles began, he said, when undercover security officers posed as worshipers and secretly filmed a service where he was helping to officiate in 2010.

Accused of “inciting hatred and disparaging the human dignity of citizens,” he was put on trial for extremism along with a second elder, Vyacheslav Stepanov, 40. The prosecutor’s case, heard by a municipal court in Sergiyev Posad, a center of the Russian Orthodox Church, produced no evidence of extremism and focused instead on the insufficient patriotism of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“Their disregard for the state,” a report prepared for the prosecution said, “erodes any sense of civic affiliation and promotes the destruction of national and state security.”

In a ruling last year, the court found the two men not guilty and their ordeal seemed over — until Mr. Sivak tried to change money and was told that he had been placed on a list of “terrorists and extremists.”

He and Mr. Stepanov now face new charges of extremism and are to appear before a regional court this month. “There is a big wave of repression breaking,” Mr. Stepanov said.

In response to written questions, the Justice Ministry in Moscow said a yearlong review of documents at the Jehovah’s Witnesses “administrative center” near St. Petersburg had uncovered violations of a Russian law banning extremism. As a result, it added, the center should be “liquidated,” along with nearly 400 locally registered branches of the group and other structures.

For the denomination’s leaders inside Russia, the sharp escalation in a long campaign of harassment, previously driven mostly by local officials, drew horrifying flashbacks to the Soviet era.

Vasily Kalin, the chairman of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Russian arm, recalled that his whole family had been deported to Siberia when he was a child. “It is sad and reprehensible that my children and grandchildren should be facing a similar fate,” he said. “Never did I expect that we would again face the threat of religious persecution in modern Russia.”

Mr. Stepanov led a Friday evening service. CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

In Russia, as in many countries, the door-to-door proselytizing of Jehovah’s Witnesses often causes irritation, and their theological idiosyncrasies disturb many mainstream Christians. The group has also been widely criticized for saying that the Bible prohibits blood transfusions. But it has never promoted violent or even peaceful political resistance.

“I cannot imagine that anyone really thinks they are a threat,” said Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, which monitors extremism in Russia. “But they are seen as a good target. They are pacifists, so they cannot be radicalized, no matter what you do to them. They can be used to send a message.”

That message, it would seem, is that everyone needs to get with the Putin program — or risk being branded as an extremist if they display indifference, never mind hostility, to the Kremlin’s drive to make Russia a great power again.

“A big reason they are being targeted is simply that they are an easy target,” Ms. Fagan said. “They don’t vote, so nobody is going to lose votes by attacking them.”

Attacking Jehovah’s Witnesses also sends a signal that even the mildest deviation from the norm, if proclaimed publicly and insistently, can be punished under the anti-extremism law, which was passed after Russia’s second war in Chechnya and the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Billed as a move by Russia to join a worldwide struggle against terrorism, the law prohibited “incitement of racial, national or religious strife, and social hatred associated with violence or calls for violence.”

But the reference to violence was later deleted, opening the way for the authorities to classify as extremist any group claiming to offer a unique, true path to religious or political salvation.

Even the Russian Orthodox Church has sometimes fallen afoul of the law: The slogan “Orthodoxy or Death!” — a rallying cry embraced by some hard-line believers — has been banned as an illegal extremist text.

The Cathedral of the Assumption in Sergiyev Posad. Jehovah’s Witnesses say that the local authorities have avoided giving them permission to build a Kingdom Hall in the town, and that they have to use a large house in a village 12 miles away for services. CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

To help protect the Orthodox Church and other established religions, Parliament passed a law in 2015 to exempt the Bible and the Quran, as well as Jewish and Buddhist scripture, from charges of extremism based on their claims to offer the only true faith.

The main impetus for the current crackdown, however, appears to come from the security services, not the Orthodox Church. Roman Lunkin, director of the Institute of Religion and Law, a Moscow research group, described it as “part of a broad policy of suppressing all nongovernmental organizations” that has gained particular force because of the highly centralized structure of Jehovah’s Witnesses under a worldwide leadership based in the United States.

“They are controlled from outside Russia and this is very suspicious for our secret services,” he said. “They don’t like having an organization that they do not and cannot control.”

Artyom Grigoryan, a former Jehovah’s Witness who used to work at the group’s Russian headquarters but who now follows the Orthodox Church, said the organization had “many positive elements,” like its ban on excessive drinking, smoking and other unhealthy habits.

All the same, he said it deserved to be treated with suspicion. “Look at it from the view of the state,” he said. “Here is an organization that is run from America, that gets financing from abroad, and whose members don’t serve in the army and don’t vote.”

Estranged from his parents, who are still members and view his departure as sinful, he said Jehovah’s Witnesses broke up families and “in the logic of the state, it presents a threat.”

He added, “I am not saying this is real or not, but it needs to be checked by objective experts.”

Mr. Sivak, now preparing for yet another trial, said he had always tried to follow the law and he respected the state, but could not put its interests above the commands of his faith.

“They say I am a terrorist,” he said, “but all I ever wanted to do was to get people to pay attention to the Bible.”

Correction: April 4, 2017

An earlier version of this article misstated Andrei Sivak’s age. He is 43, not 42. The error was repeated in a picture caption, which also misstated the age of Vyacheslav Stepanov. He is 40, not 39. And because of an editing error, the article also misidentified the person who said he was detained last week under Russia’s extremism law. It was Leonid Volkov, not Aleksei A. Navalny.

NICE THAT THE EDITOR PUT A PICTURE OF ELDERLY WITNESSES THAT RUSSIA IS CALLING DANGEROUS EXTREMIST.

April 4, 2017

Jehovah's Witnesses on brink of catastrophe

WATERSHED 5 APRIL

by Anton Chivchalov

Radio Svoboda, 3 April 2017

You probably do not know what is happening on 5April unless you read the recent text by Alexander Podrabinek on the Svoboda website. For the rest, I suggest that you get up to date as quickly as possible because the date is extraordinarily important. On this day the Supreme Court of the Russian federation may for the first time in the modern history of the country liquidate . . . a religion. Not a company, not a legal entity, not an organization—a whole confession, a whole faith.

By the stroke of a judge's pen, about 200 thousand believers of this confession may be declared outside the law, their religious property may be confiscated, and a mass of criminal cases will be opened against them throughout the country, with real prospects of prison terms. The issue is about one of the largest confessions in the country, the Jehovah's Witnesses.

"Prosecution of Witnesses has been going on for a long time, although there are no bases for it. This is not an extremist sect but serious Christians, who are no worse in any way than our Orthodox. It is all explained by the fact that they constitute competition for our official church," explains the chairman of the Civic Assistance committee, Svetlana Gannushkina. And rights advocate Liudmila Alekseeva called what is happening criminal.

Few know about this date and about the tectonic shift in Russian public life and thoughts that is being prepared. Although religious websites write about the situation (see how the main pages of the Credo and Religiia i Pravo websites look), the overwhelming portion of the intelligentsia remains in complete ignorance about what is happening. Even on the rights advocacy websites and opposition portals one finds almost no information on this subject. The problem is that all Russian intellectuals, rights advocates, and opposition figures may wake up on 6 April in a completely different country without noticing it. In a country in which the state has banned a religion—an unheard-of, absurd, savage thing by any civilized (European, democratic, humanistic, it should be stressed) standards.

On 15 March the Ministry of Justice filed in the Supreme Court a lawsuit for finding all 395 local religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses to be extremist and for liquidating them, along with their parent organization, the Administrative Center, located outside St. Petersburg. This court is supposed to issue its decision on 5 April or a bit later—a month is given for everything, and this month is calculated from 15 March. Consequently, everything should be finished no later than 15 April. A temporary suspension of all activity has already been introduced at the request of the Ministry of Justice, as a temporary injunction for the period of the consideration of the case.

In a real sense, we are standing on the brink of a catastrophe, after which we will return directly to 1937.

In the event of a satisfaction of the ministry's lawsuit, confession of the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Russian federation will become practically impossible. The issue is, I remind you, about a large, generally recognized religious movement, which operates freely and officially in all countries of Europe, without exception. But Russia has now managed to become the first country in the world in which the official website of the movement has been forbidden (which is among the three most popular religious websites in the world), the first country in which importation of its edition of the Bible is forbidden, and now it may also become the first country in which this movement will be banned as a whole for extremism, and people are accused of that who on principle refuse to bear arms. In order to prove that peaceful citizens are extremists, officials have had to take recourse to years-long titanic efforts, including false expert analyses and planting of compromising material.

The Jehovah's Witnesses may become the first victims, after which come the second and third. In the opinion of religious studies scholar Stanislav Panin, now new technologies of struggle with unwelcome religions are being rolled out on the Witnesses. Russia may enter a historical phase in which the state declares war on believers and on faith as such. "The only way out that the state has found is to declare the entire religious sphere potentially dangerous," says religious studies scholar Roman Lunkin.

In these very days, millions of fellow believers of the Russian Jehovah's Witnesses throughout the world are writing letters to the Russian president and other high officials, and hashtags with videos posted by them are roaming the Internet. All of this is a kind of gesture of despair, witnessing merely that judicial means of struggle have been exhausted. In a real sense, we are standing on the brink of a catastrophe, after which we return directly to 1937. And this will be done so quickly that nobody will notice. The preparatory work has been done, and what remains is a formality.

Anatoly Pchelintsev, a doctor of jurisprudence and member of the expert council of the State Duma, explains: "The Ministry of Justice has made a colossal juridical and religious studies mistake. All of history testifies to the fact that an attempt to ban and liquidate will lead to nothing. The Jehovah's Witnesses will simply exist in the underground." He said that even Orthodox clergy ask him in bewilderment what is happening. They now understand: tomorrow they may come for them.

We all must wake up as quickly as possible and realize what may happen by the day after tomorrow. (tr. by PDS)

Thursday, March 30,

April 4, 2017

Thursday, March 30,

Worldwide Letter-writing Campaign Protests Proposed Religious Ban

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A huge news story is being almost completely ignored by the media.

Post offices across the country are running out of international stamps. Facebook is blowing up with pictures of people writing letters. The Guinness people are watching to see if this letter-writing campaign will make it into their Book of World Records. (The current record-holder for a letter-writing campaign is 900,000 letters written for Amnesty International.) What’s the story?

While the news is busy arguing about to what extent Russia may have interfered in the recent American election, Russia has been quietly, dramatically restricting the freedoms of one specific group of their citizens.

Maybe you read that and say, ‘Well, it is Russia, after all; aren’t they always restricting their citizens?’ No, actually. After the Soviet Union ended, Russia became a democratic society, with a constitution and everything. Section One Chapter 2 of that document reads:

“Everyone shall be guaranteed the right to freedom of conscience, to freedom of religious worship, including the right to profess, individually or jointly with others, any religion, or to profess no religion, to freely choose, possess and disseminate religious or other beliefs, and to act in conformity with them.”

That’s even clearer than the freedom of religion guaranteed by the United States constitution.

In spite of that guarantee, the government of Russia has petitioned their Supreme Court to brand Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremists, in the same league as ISIS. If that move succeeds it will become illegal for the 170,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in that country to meet for worship, to discuss the bible with others, or even to read the bible in their own homes. The case is scheduled to be heard on April 5, 2017.

In response, the world headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses has asked all 8,000,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide to write to six key officials in Moscow, including Vladimir Putin himself.

From the United States, mailing those six letters to Moscow costs about $7. In some other countries, it could cost a family a significant portion of their monthly income. Yet, based on reports on Facebook, Jehovah’s Witnesses, their friends and business associates are pitching in with a will. Total cost of postage, according to one Facebooker, will be over $55 million, based just on the U.S. rate.

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If 8,000,000 people each send six letters, another Facebook mathematician calculated, the Moscow post office can expect a stack of mail nearly 19 miles high!

A handful of other websites have circulated the news about the impending court decision and the letter-writing campaign against it:

Rochester, NY: Jehovah’s Witnesses plead for freedom, mercy, in Russia crackdown

The University of Missouri’s Religion News Service: Jehovah’s Witnesses Fear Russian Government may Ban Them

The Philippines: Pinoy Jehovah’s Witnesses join call vs threat of Russia ban

Sierra Leone: Jehovah’s Witnesses Mobilize Global Response to Threat of Ban in Russia

Jehovahs-Witness-members-writing-their-l

Michigan’s Mission Network News: Religious Freedom and the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia

Spokane, Washington: Jehovah’s Witnesses protest label

Trinidad and Tobago: Russia: Witnesses a terrorist group

Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Zambia websites also reposted the news release from jw.org.

Headlines from pro-Russian news sources have a somewhat different outlook. Russia’s English-language Sputnik reads:

Enough is enough! Jehovah’s Witnesses face Ban

On Tuesday, the Helsinki Commission, which includes U.S. Senators and congressmen, condemned the planned Russian legal move.

While their sentiments are appreciated, the millions of letters pouring in from around the world are far more likely to sway Moscow than a handful of American politicians.

If your local news outlet hasn't covered this story, please feel free to send them the link to this column.

http://www.biblefriendlybooks.com/2017/03/worldwide-letter-writing-campaign.html?m=1

April 4, 2017

Russian Government Seeks to Ban Jehovah's Witnesses

April 03, 2017 5:00 PM

Victor Vladimirov

FILE - Stacks of booklets distributed by members of Jehovah's Witnesses are seen during the court session in the Siberian town of Gorno-Altaysk, Dec. 16, 2010.

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MOSCOW —

Several U.S. legislators have criticized the Russian government for plans to effectively ban the Jehovah's Witnesses, a nontraditional Christian movement, as an "extremist" organization.

On March 15, Russia's Justice Ministry filed a claim with the country's Supreme Court, calling on it to designate the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia an "extremist" organization and liquidate the group's national headquarters and 395 local chapters in Russia.

Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian Christian group founded in the United States in the 1870s. It is known, among other things, for door-to-door preaching and refusing to perform military service, salute national flags or accept blood transfusions. Its adherents have frequently been persecuted by authoritarian governments, including that of the former Soviet Union.

"At stake in the upcoming court case is the legality and, perhaps, the survival of the Jehovah's Witnesses — and, in fact, basic religious freedom — throughout the Russian Federation," said Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who co-chairs the U.S. Helsinki Commission. "If the Supreme Court of Russia declares this faith group an extremist organization, it is an ominous sign for all believers and it marks a dark, sad day for all Russians."

Russia's Justice Ministry reported on its website last week that since 2009, it has identified 95 materials of "an extremist nature" that were brought into Russia and circulated in the country, according to the Tass news agency. Tass quoted the website saying, "As many as eight local cells of the organization were recognized to be extremist ones, banned and disbanded since 2009."

FILE - The iconic Watchtower sign is seen on the roof of 25-30 Columbia Heights, the current world headquarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Dec. 9, 2015.

However, Anatoly Pchelintsev, chief editor of the magazine Religion and Law, said the accusations are incompatible with the principle of freedom of religion.

"Formally, the semblance of legitimacy is observed [by the Justice Ministry]," he told VOA's Russian Service. "However, there is actually no extremist activity and, in fact, it is baseless and bogus. There are multiple videotapes showing how banned literature is planted [on Jehovah's Witnesses]."

If the Supreme Court rules against Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, its 175,000 followers face the threat of criminal prosecution.

That, according to Pchelintsev, would be "total madness."

"Of course, there will absolutely be prison sentences, just like it was in Taganrog [in southern Russia's Rostov region], where 15 innocent people were sentenced," he said. "But a majority [of the Jehovah's Witnesses] will go underground. They will also be congregating, praying and so on. Stalin couldn't do anything about them even though he deported them to the North. Hitler also couldn't do anything about them, even though he sent them to concentration camps and physically destroyed them."

Pchelintsev recalled that the Jehovah's Witnesses were recognized in the early 1990s as having been victims of political repression during the Soviet period, and received official documents to that effect.

"If they're being banned now, should their documents be revoked?" he asked. "And then, after a while, when a new president is elected, should they receive their documents back? It's a bizarre logic. We cannot live according to the constitution; we're constantly looking for an enemy, either external or internal."

Pchelintsev added: "You may not share their beliefs and there can be different attitudes toward them," he said. "However, from the standpoint of law and the constitution, they have every right to exist. Otherwise, we will become the first country in the modern world to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses."

Valery Borshchev, a veteran human rights activist and member of the Russian branch of the International Association of Religious Freedom, agrees that harassment of the Jehovah's Witnesses violates the principles of religious freedom.

"The Jehovah's Witnesses are not involved in any extremist activity," he told VOA. "Yes, they have some controversial views that confuse others — for example, the ban on blood transfusions. But it's a debatable issue."

In any case, said Borshchev, this has nothing to do with extremist activity.

"All the accusations against them are unfair and anti-constitutional," he said. "It violates the principles of the freedom of belief and conscience enshrined in the constitution."

According to Borshchev, those calling for the Jehovah's Witnesses to be banned do not understand the nature of religious organizations.

"They would do well to learn the history of religious movement in the Soviet Union, where nobody could do anything about the alternative churches," he said. "The same thing will happen now. More than that, this adversarial position will escalate the conflict. The members of the organization will feel like they have a mission and it will strengthen their rigor."

According to the Helsinki Final Act, which was signed by the 57 participating countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe (OSCE), including Russia, "the participating States will recognize and respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience."

VOA's Svetlana Cunningham contributed to this report, which was produced in collaboration with VOA's Russian Service.

The Librarian · April 4, 2017

Jehovah's Witnesses counter sue Ministry of Justice

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ASK SUPREME COURT TO FIND JUSTICE MINISTRY'S ACTIONS TO BE POLITICAL REPRESSIONS

Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 2 April 2017

An unprecedented lawsuit was filed on 30 March 2017 in the Supreme Court of Russia: to rule the actions of the Ministry of Justice against the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses to be political repressions. Comprehensive and reasonable, the aforesaid lawsuit is a counterclaim with respect to the lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice of 15 March 2017, in which the ministry asks for banning and recognizing as extremist the "Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia," and also 395 local organizations of this religion on the territory of Russia.

The actions of the Ministry of Justice possess the indicators of political repressions, from the point of view of Russian and international law. They violate articles 18, 9, and 6 of the Convention on Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties. In Russia, the concept of repressions is defined by the law "On rehabilitation of victims of political repressions." Repressions include politically motivated action of organs of government for restriction of the rights and liberties of citizens who are considered to be dangerous for the state, including on the basis of religious identity.

The lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice is aimed at associations of citizens selected exclusively on the basis of their confessing the faith of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Analysis of the actions of the Ministry of Justice with respect to Jehovah's Witnesses gives evidence of arbitrariness and discrimination. For example, laboratories and centers of forensic expert analysis that are subordinate to the Ministry of Justice have come to diametrically opposite conclusions about the presence or absence of indicators of "extremism" in the very same publications of Jehovah's Witnesses. Such a contradiction in and of itself is evidence of the unacceptable weakness of the methods. But, instead of striving to establish the truth, ensuring the unity and consistency of proper expert conclusions, the Ministry of Justice has used in courts only those conclusions that have led to finding books of Jehovah's Witnesses to be "extremist," and consequently to finding their organizations to be "extremist."

In the lawsuit numerous instances are cited testifying to the fact that prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses is politically motivated.

Believers of the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses have already been recognized as victims of political repressions, by the order of the Russian president "On measures for rehabilitation of clergy and believers who have been victims of unjustified repressions." Russian legislation has condemned the years-long terror and massive persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses as incompatible with the ideals of right and justice, has expressed deep sympathy for the victims of unjustified repressions and to the relatives and neighbors, and has declared the unwavering attempt to achieve real guarantees of maintaining legality and human rights.

The Russian Supreme Court will begin consideration of the lawsuit on 5 April 2017. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 April 2017)

Bible Speaks · April 3, 2017

3 minutes ago, AllenSmith said:

Personally, I was hoping to read True Tom’s rendition of the Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It song, as a rolling commentary, oh well!

The point of this exercise was to give our brothers in Russia hope with solidarity. Psalm 133:1 Context: How Pleasant to Live in Unity!

AGREE AS JAMES SAID "CONSIDER IT JOY WHEN YOU MEET WITH VARIOUS TRIALS". OUR RUSSIAN BROTHERS KNOW THE END IS NEAR AND THEY HAVE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE AS WE DO IF WE HAVE J.O.Y. THAT IS PUT JEHOVAH FIRST, OTHERS SECOND AND YOURSELF LAST = JOY.

David Normand · April 3, 2017

17 hours ago, David Normand said:

I agree with several of you that ours is not the only religion that is being persecuted. I did read an article about a Baptist minister that has been there for six years or so who was arrested under the same charge and is now leaving his missionary field and returning to USA. However, most other religions are being persecuted as individual churches or groups. Ours is the only one (at least at this time) that is persecuted in-mass. Congregations do not even have to have violated their extremist laws personally to risk being shutdown and having assets confiscated and members jailed for worship of the only true God.

YES NEARLY ALL THE CHURCHES OTHER THAN THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX HAVE EXPERIENCED SOME KIND OF REPRESSION AND PERSECUTION. [EVEN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS HAD PROBLEMS WHICH ONLY NUMBERS 600,000 IN RUSSIA COMPARED WITH 100 MILLION ROC]. BUT WHAT STANDS OUT IS THAT AT LEAST AT THIS TIME IT IS ONLY JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES THAT ARE BEING TARGETED FOR ELIMINATION BY BANNING THE ENTIRE RELIGION. THAT FACT ALONE STOOD OUT TO MY BIBLE STUDY AND IT IS THAT FACT THAT MADE HIM REALIZE THAT THE WITNESSES ARE STANDING OUT AS DIFFERENT, NOT BECAUSE OF PERSECUTION BUT OF GOING UNDER BAN. EVEN IF IT DOSEN'T HAPPEN THE FACT IS STILL THERE THAT IT WAS ONLY THE WITNESSES AS MANY SECULAR JOURNALIST HAVE RECENTLY NOTICED THAT HAVE BEEN SINGULARLY TARGETED FOR ELIMINATION BY BANNING. tHE CHANGES IN THE EXTREMIST LAWS IN 2006 AND 2015 SOME HAVE NOTED THE PARTICULAR DETAILS THAT MAINLY AFFECT PRIMARILY JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES AS THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO COVER THE ENTIRE SPECTRUM OF WHAT RUSSIA'S LAWS DEEM EXTREMIST - DOOR TO DOOR EVANGELISM, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, PRINTING AND MANY OTHERS.

ONE ITEM OF INTEREST REGARDING JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES AS STANDING OUT AS DIFFERENT AND HATED BY OTHERS IS IF YOU GO TO THE WEBSITE "RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE" {ONTARIO CONSULTANTS ON RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE] IT DISCUSSES THE BELIEFS OF THOUSANDS OF RELIGIONS. OUT OF THOSE THOUSANDS OF RELIGION ONLY ONE HAS A DISCLAIMER AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE SECTION ON THE WITNESSES. IT SAYS :

"Note: Please don't send us abusive Emails that
attack the WTS. This section is about the WTS;
It is not an official Jehovah's Witness website.

We receive an enormous number of complaint Emails critical of our description of the Jehovah's Witnesses as a Christian denomination. Many Christians have a much more restrictive definition of the term "Christian" than we do. Before sending us a complaint Email, please read our essay on the diversity of definitions of the term "Christianity" Also please note that we do not respond to abusive or obscene Emails which unfortunately form the majority of Emails on this topic."

NOT EVEN THE SECTION ABOUT MUSLIMS HAVE ANY DISCLAIMER OR ANY THING REMOTELY LIKE THE ABOVE. WHY WOULD ONLY JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES BE TARGETED FOR "ABUSIVE EMAILS" AS THIS WEBSITE NOTES? I BELIEVE IT IS BECAUSE WE ARE "NO PART OF THE WORLD" AND THAT IS WHY THE WORLD [AND APOSTATES WHO WOULD SEND "ABUSIVE" EMAIL] HATE US AND WHY WE STAND OUT AS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IN THIS ASPECT AS COMPARED TO THOUSANDS OF OTHER RELIGIONS BOTH LARGE AND SMALL !!!

The Librarian · April 3, 2017

ON APRIL, 3 2017 AN APPARENT TERRORIST ATTACK HAS OCCURED IN ST. PETERSBURG RUSSIA. TIMING IS INTERESTING WITH WHAT IS HAPPENING ON WEDNESDAY. HOPEFULLY THEY WILL NOT PULL A "NERO" AND BLAME THE WRONG PEOPLE.

INITIAL REPORTS AT LEAST 10 DEAD OVER 50 INJURED AT A METRO STATION. RT NEWS ALREADY BLAMING IT ON RELIGIOUS TERRORIST. [ISLAMISTS].

SOME ON TWEETER ARE SPECULATING THAT IT IS PUTIN'S DOING TO ENACT MARTIAL LAW.

April 3, 2017

Witness ban, Russia rebuke grows

April 2, 2017 in News

THE Kremlin threat to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses from worshipping in Russia has received widespread condemnation across the world after the United States Helsinki Commission yesterday spoke out strongly against the development and called for respect of religious freedom in the vast ex-communist country.

AGENCIES/STAFF REPORTER

The denunciation followed Russia’s decision to criminalise religious literature, places of worship known as Kingdom Halls and criminalising the preaching work of Witnesses in over 2 300 congregations under the guise of fighting extremism.

Helsinki Commission chairman Senator Roger Wicker (MS), co-Chairman Rep Chris Smith (NJ-04), and Commissioner Rep. Richard Hudson (NC-08), in a joint statement yesterday rebuked the Russian authorities for cracking down on religious liberty.

“It is wrong to apply flawed counterterrorism laws to those who seek to practice their faith,” Wicker said.

“The Russian government is exploiting genuine threats of violent extremism to undermine what little religious freedom remains in that country. This distracts from real efforts to fight terrorism. I urge the Russian government to drop the case immediately.”

Smith added: “At stake in the upcoming court case is the legality and perhaps the survival of the Jehovah’s Witnesses – and in fact basic religious freedom – throughout the Russian Federation. If the Supreme Court of Russia declares this faith group an extremist organisation, it is an ominous sign for all believers and marks a dark, sad day for all Russians.”

The pressure was being applied as Russian authorities have approached the country’s Supreme Court to effectively ban Jehovah’s Witnesses in the country from worshipping claiming that they were members of an “extremist organisation”.

“As a staunch supporter of religious liberty, I am appalled by the Russian government treating an entire religious group as a threat to national security. Religious affiliation should never be a justification for persecution,” Hudson also said.

On March 15, the Russian Ministry of Justice filed a formal court claim to label the Administrative Centre of Jehovah’s Witnesses in
Russia an extremist group and liquidate their national headquarters and 395 local chapters, known as “local religious organisations”.

Should the Russian Supreme Court decide against the Witnesses next week some 175 000 Witnesses in Russia could face criminal prosecution for practising their faith.

Some of the publications outlawed by Russia include My Book of Bible Stories – which teaches basic truths to people willing to know more about the Truth and have denied the importation of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, a Bible translation published by the Witnesses.

Spokesperson for the organisation John Hunguka said Witnesses in Zimbabwe last week participated in the global letter-writing campaign against the Russian authorities’ threat to ban their international brotherhood.

According to the Helsinki Final Act signed by all 57 participating states of the organisation for security and cooperation in Europe – including Russia –“participating States will recognise and respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience.”

April 2, 2017

Jehovah's Witnesses developing strategy to defend suit for prohibition

LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES FILE 395 PETITIONS IN SUPREME COURT FOR ENTRY INTO CASE

Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 31 March 2017

All 395 local religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, which the Ministry of Justice is trying to ban behind their backs, have filed petitions in the Supreme Court to be involved in the case in the capacity of co-defendants.

According to existing legislation, all local religious organizations are individual legal entities, with their own property, and they are not structural subdivisions, affiliates, nor representatives of one another. They are united to the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia only by unity in the faith and internal canonical relations.

An absolute majority of these organizations have never been accused of violating the law. They are puzzled why the Ministry of Justice is demanding their liquidation, prohibition, and recognition as "extremist," especially behind their back. They are especially alarmed that after the liquidation of the organizations, believers may be held criminally liable merely for joint reading of the Bible, as shown by the criminal "Case of the Sixteen" in Taganrog. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 April 2017)

Jehovah's Witnesses not properly notified of suspension

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES APPEAL IN COURT JUSTICE MINISTRY ORDER SUSPENDING ACTIVITY OF THEIR ORGANIZATIONS

Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 31 March 2017

The Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia appealed in court the order of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian federation regarding suspension of the activity of all 396 registered organizations of this religion in Russia. The order was issued by the ministry simultaneously with the filing of the plaintiff's declaration in the Supreme Court of the RF for prohibition of all their organizations.

Although this order of suspension pertains to all 396 organizations, the Ministry of Justice sent it only to the address of their Administrative Center, and even then, judging by the stamp on the envelope, only five days after it was signed.

Believers hope that the court will rule the aforesaid order to be invalid. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 April 2017)

Bible Speaks · April 2, 2017

Here is a new book from 2014 by Baran called "Dissent on the Margins How Soviet Jehovah's Witnesses Defied Communism and Lived to Preach About It". This is an excellent 382 page book about "Jehovah's Witnesses and how they survived decades of brutal persecution, and emerged as one of the region's fastest growing religions after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The Soviet state considered Witnesses to be the most reactionary of all underground religious movements, and used extraordinary measures to try and eliminate this threat. Yet the Witnesses survived, while the Soviet system did not. After 1991, they faced continuing challenges to their right to practice their faith in post Soviet states..." [from book jacket].

Currently as of 2015 the Russian Federation just like its predecessor the Soviet state has been repressing the Jehovah's Witnesses in particular. So much so that they even banned the official website that they use as noted below. Thinking they are extremist because of their Christian neutrality and the fact that they are "no part of the world" as the Bible says Christians should be. And as Jesus said the "World would hate them" because of their stand as true Christians. [John 15:17-19 ;17:16; 18:36].

Seven months after the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declared jw. org to be extremist, Russian authorities banned the official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The ban became effective on July 21, 2015, when the Russian Federation Ministry of Justice added jw. org to the Federal List of Extremist Materials. Internet providers throughout Russia have blocked access to the website, and it is now a criminal offense to promote it from within the country. Russia is the only country in the world to ban jw. org. {FROM LISA.JOEYWIT ON EBAY}.

The Librarian · April 2, 2017

Here is a book about Christians in Russia during the Cold War era [printed 1964]. Called "The Faith of the Russian Evangelicals" by Pollock. There are several areas that talk about "Jehovah's Witnesses" in Russia. Here is one quote :"Jehovah's Witnesses have spread like wildfire in Russia...have not endeared them to the historic Churches throughout the world, enrage the Soviet authorities. Jehovah's Witnesses are opposed to all governments, most of whom treat them as somewhat a joke. The Soviet Government treat them as a deadly serious threat..." [page 150].

Interestingly although the Soviet Union was dissolved over 25 years ago, today the Russian Federation Government still considers them a "Deadly serious threat" since they have branded them "extremist" and have even banned their website noted below. The only country so far to have done so!

UPDATE : On April, 5 2017 the Supreme Court in Russia may BAN Jehovah's Witnesses. Out of over 2,000 religions in Russia WHY are they picking only on this small religion of peaceful people and proclaim they are the same as terrorists by banning them? {FROM EBAY LISA.JOEYWIT}

The Librarian · April 2, 2017

The following op-ed appeared in The Moscow Times on July 26, 2015

How will Europe's human rights court respond to a government that treats a pacifist religious group as a dangerous extremist cell? The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will answer that question this summer when it rules on whether Russia's prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses under its extremism law criminalizes freedom of religion or belief.

A ruling against the Kremlin could be a landmark decision for Russia, affecting not only Jehovah's Witnesses. From Muslims to dissenting members of the Moscow Patriarchate Russian Orthodox Church (MPROC), other Russians are also caught in the wide net cast by this overly broad law.

Under the extremism law, religious material is banned throughout Russia once a higher court upholds a lower court ruling that it is "extremist." Convicted individuals face up to four years in prison. As of this June, Russia's list of banned materials reached 2,859 items, having started in 2007 with 15 items.

The ECHR is reviewing 22 cases of Russian court bans of 72 Jehovah's Witness texts, including a children's book called "My Book of Bible Stories."

Russia enacted its extremism law in 2002, just months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Two of the law's provisions defined religious extremism as promoting the "exclusivity, superiority, or lack of equal worth of an individual" and "incitement of religious discord" in connection with acts or threats of violence.

How did these provisions allow Russia to target Jehovah's Witnesses or other peaceful religious minorities?

MY THOUGHT : ¹⁰ “This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: ‘In that day thoughts will come into your heart, and you will devise an evil plan. ¹¹ You will say: “I will invade the land of unprotected settlements.*+ I will come against those living in security, without disturbance, all of them living in settlements unprotected by walls, bars, or gates.” ¹² It will be to take much spoil and plunder, to attack the devastated places that are now inhabited+and a people regathered from the nations,+ who are accumulating wealth and property,+ those who are living in the center of the earth. EZEKIEL 38.

April 1, 2017

In Southern Russia, activities of head office of Jehovah's Witnesses suspended because of accusations of extremism

On March 23, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) announced the suspension of the activities of the management centre of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. This decision will affect the religious communities throughout the country, stated Yaroslav Sivulsky, a representative of the centre of Jehovah's Witnesses.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that representatives of the centre of Jehovah's Witnesses announced a campaign to "recognize the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses as extremist and ban them throughout the country."

"Believers have learned from the media about a lawsuit filed for liquidation of their management centre... The adversarial principle and the principle of equality of the parties have been grossly violated," reports the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.

Believers also report about frequent cases of planting of extremist printed materials to liturgical buildings of Jehovah's Witnesses.

In Southern Russia, at least four local organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses were liquidated on the basis of the use of literature included in the list of extremist materials.

The international community has repeatedly drawn attention to the application of the law on extremism against Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.

See earlier reports:

The court in Karachay-Cherkessia fined “Jehovah's Witnesses” to 50 000 rubles, North-Caucasian Jehovah's Witnesses state pressure by power agents, Experts treat new sentence of Jehovah's Witnesses in Taganrog as unconstitutional.

Source: http://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/38846/
© Caucasian Knot

Bible Speaks · April 1, 2017

There has never been such a widespread ban in Russia

http://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/299858/

bruceq · April 1, 2017

On 3/31/2017 at 8:32 AM, bruceq said:

ONE OF MY BIBLE STUDIES YESTERDAY CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ARE THE TRUE RELIGION BECAUSE OF WHAT IS HAPPENING IN RUSSIA. HE NOTICED THAT ONLY THE WITNESSES AND NO OTHER RELIGION IS TARGETED TO BE BANNED ON APRIL 5. HE SAID "THERE ARE OVER 2,000 RELIGIONS IN RUSSIA AND THEY ARE PICKING ON A SMALL PEACEFUL RELIGION THAT CANNOT FIGHT BACK AS MOST WOULD DO. WHY ONLY THE WITNESSES?" HE SAID IT IS NOW OBVIOUS THAT THEY HAVE THE TRUTH. MANY RELIGIONS ARE BEING RESTRICTED IN RUSSIA BUT ONLY ONE HAS BEEN SUBMITTED TO THE SUPREME COURT TO BE ABOLISHED !!!

Such a massive ban of an organization with such a great number of regional representations and members has not been in Russia," Gefter said in commenting for a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent.

From Russia Religion News Current News Items

bruceq · April 1, 2017

Jehovah's Witnesses case viewed from far south of Russia

RIGHTS DEFENDERS CALL PERSECUTION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN RUSSIA UNPRECEDENTED

Kavkazskii Uzel, 27 March 2017

A possible ban on the activity of the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia will lead to widespread violations of rights and criminal prosecutions of citizens, according to experts questioned by Kavkazskii Uzel. Congregations in the south of the country number about 48 thousand actively practicing believers, a representative of the Russian administrative center of Jehovah's Witnesses reported.

As Kavkazskii Uzel reported, the activity of the religious organization "Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia" was suspended because of "violations of charter goals and purposes and also existing legislation of the Russian federation, including the federal law 'On combating extremist activity,'" the Ministry of Justice reported on 23 March. Representatives of the administrative center reported about a coordinated campaign whose goal is "recognizing the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses to be extremist and prohibiting it throughout the country."

"They take every instance when we say that our faith is correct and they get extremism out of this. But after all every faith says this," a representative of the head of the Russian office, Yaroslav Sivulsky, commented for Kavkazskii Uzel on the precedents of including publications of the religious organization in the list of extremist materials. The United Nations Committee for Human Rights and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe expressed worry about the application of the law on extremism to Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.

48,000 believers in South Russia are in the risk zone

In all, in Russia there are 396 registered religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses and 2277 religious groups of this confession, numbering 175 thousand believers. In regions of the Southern Federal District and North Caucasus Federal District there reside about 48 thousand "actively practicing adherents of our religion, without counting sympathizers and relatives who are wavering," Ivan Belenko, the press secretary of the headquarters of Russian Jehovah's Witnesses, told a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent.

In particular, in Dagestan live 430 believers; in Kabardino-Balkaria, 1,600; in Karachaevo-Chekesia, 350; in Stavropol territory, 8,500; in North Ossetia, 4,300; in Krasnodar territory, 17,500; in Rostov province, 6,500; in Astrakhan province, 900; in Kalmykia, 80; in Volgograd province, 6,000; in Adygei, 1,500 Jehovah's Witnesses. There are no precise data for Chechnya and Ingushetia, Belenko added.

Local religious organizations in the Southern Federal District and North Caucasus Federal District are regularly fined for use of literature, published by Jehovah's Witnesses and subsequently included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. In addition, eight organizations have been liquidated, including in Taganrog (Rostov province), Abinsk (Krasnodar territory), Chekessk (Karachaevo-Cherkesia), and Elista (Kalmykia).

Ivan Belenko connected the liquidation of eight religious organizations with the lawsuit against the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses.

"On 2 March 2016, the headquarters received a warning from the office of the prosecutor general regarding the impermissibility of extremist activity. The warning pointed out the closing of eight local organizations and the connection between them and the administrative center. In the intervening year, fines have often been levied on local organizations," Belenko said, specifying that the warning spoke about the possibility of filing a lawsuit for liquidation in the event of a repeat of violations of antiextremism legislation.

"In these 12 months, which ended on 2 March 2017, we have had a multitude of plants of literature that has been ruled extremist," Ivan Belenko declared.

"In 2016 alone occurred no fewer that 46 such plants, several of which were recorded by surveillance cameras. Believers sent corresponding declarations to law enforcement agencies. . . . One planted brochure is often sufficient for warning a local religious organization," a press release of 15 February by the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia said. In particular, surveillance cameras recorded an incident occurring on 20 September 2016 in the village of Nezlobnoe of Stavropol territory. The video, posted on the website of the Russian Jehovah's Witnesses, contains footage of how people in black masks broke into a house of worship and took literature out from under their clothing and placed in on a table nearby.

Cases will not be opened against 175 thousand persons, but the flywheel will be spinning

The attempt to restrict the activity of a religious organization was called unprecedented in scale by the director of the Sova Center for News and Analysis, Alexander Verkhovsky.

"The only thing of which Jehovah's Witnesses are accused is that they maintain that their religion is the best and all the others have gone astray. On this basis their literature is banned and now it has reached to a general prohibition of the organization," Verkhovsky told a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent.

Verkhovsky noted that the suspension of activity is an interim measure for the period of consideration of the ministry's lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Russia.

"If the court denies the lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice, then the suspension will be over, but if it is approved, the suspension will turn into liquidation. Evidently there will be an appeal, but on the whole in this case everything will happen quite quickly," the expert thinks.

Suspension of activity effectively means blocking the functioning of the religious organization, and in the long term its adherents are threatened with criminal prosecution, Verkhovsky supposes.

"The suspension extends to the whole structure of Russian Jehovah's Witnesses. The decision contains a list of organizations whose activity must be suspended. This means that for any activity, including religious activity like prayer meetings, an administrative fine is threatened. If the Supreme Court prohibits the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, and its decision takes effect, then an attempt to meet will entail a criminal penalty on the basis of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of RF, for continuation of the activity of an extremist organization. Jehovah's Witnesses have already had such cases on the basis of bans of local organizations. It is clear that criminal cases will not be opened against 175 thousand persons, but they will be opened against somebody and gradually the flywheel will only go spinning," Verkhovsky said.

The liquidation of the Taganrog congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in 2009 led to the judicial prosecution of its members. According to the investigation, after the ban of the group of believers, it continued to conduct worship services and study of literature that had been ruled extremist. The defendants did not acknowledge their guilt, thinking that they were being persecuted for religious convictions. On 30 November 2015, four of them were sentenced to suspended terms and another 12 to fines on the basis of the charge of extremism. In March 2016 the Rostov provincial court considered that this verdict was justified.

A ban of the activity of the organization may lead to the confiscation of all property belonging to it, Verkhovsky noted. "The ban has been done to a great extent so that they were not able to transfer this property to other legal entities," Verkhovsky said.

The justice ministry's lawsuit fits into the logic of antiextremist legislation, the expert thinks.

"It is said that so much literature and so many organizations have been banned, but the activity has continued, so it is time to prohibit on the whole. Technically for representatives of the organization it will be difficult to defend their position in the Supreme Court. In order to stop the process it will be necessary to reconsider the bans of publications themselves. For this the prosecutor general's office must display good will; but it is this agency that beginning in 2009 was the chief engine of pressure. Or there must be intervention on the level of the president," Verkhovsky concluded.

There has never been such a widespread ban in Russia

The suspension of the activity of the Administrative Center of Russian Jehovah's Witnesses is blocking the charter activity of the religious organization, considers the chairman of the committee Civic Cooperation, Svetlana Gannushkina.

"After the ban of the activity they do not have the right either to assemble or to conduct mass events or to register or to open an account, that is, to conduct a normal form of life typical of a public structure," the rights advocate said in commentary for Kavkazskii Uzel.

She thinks that the persecution of the Jehovah's Witnesses is explained by the relationships of the state with the official church.

"Persecution of the Witnesses has been going on for a long time, although there are no bases for it. This is not an extremist sect but serious Christians who are in no way worse than our Orthodox believers. Everything is explained by the fact that they constitute competition for our official church. Unfortunately, the leadership of the church conducts itself in this regard extremely tactlessly and not politically correct," Svetlana Gannushkina concluded.

The threat of prosecution of believing adherents with the help of antiextremism legislation is not ruled out also by the director of the Institute of Human Rights, Valentin Gefter.

"Prosecution will not begin right away, but its likelihood cannot be ruled out. One gets the impression that the sum of decisions of regional courts (liquidating local religious organizations—KU note) and the Ministry of Justice will lead to a [complete] cessation of the activity of the religious organization. Such a massive ban of an organization with such a great number of regional representations and members has not been in Russia," Gefter said in commenting for a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent.

At the same time, formally the decision of the Ministry of Justice for suspension of activity of the headquarters of Russian Jehovah's Witnesses does not affect the personal interests of believers, attorney Anton Bogdanov explained.

"The order of the Ministry of Justice was issued only with respect to the legal entity 'Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia' and does not apply to or affect the personal confessional activity of individual citizens," a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent was told by the lawyer, who has had occasion to represent the interests of adherents of religious groups.

"The campaign of persecution of Witnesses for statements typical of all religious texts represents a flagrant violation of the constitutional principle of freedom of conscience and the equality of religious associations before the law," the official website of Russian Jehovah's Witnesses quotes an expert of the Institute of Human Rights, Lev Levinson.

In the "Information" section in Kavkazskii Uzel is published the Russia-wide list of materials found by a court to be extremist. In accordance with article 13 of the federal law "On combating extremist activity," this list "is subject to periodic publication in news media." (tr. by PDS, posted 1 April 2017)

Anna · April 1, 2017

Yes Tom that is true and it is also in the public press here :

Enormous attention to Jehovah's Witnesses case

PETITION FILED FOR SPACIOUS COURTROOM AND VIDEOTAPING IN HEARINGS IN SUPREME COURT OF RUSSIA

Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 23 March 2017

On 21 March 2017 the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia sent to the Supreme Court of Russia a petition that for the hearing on the lawsuit of the Russian Ministry of Justice a courtroom for the sessions capable of accommodating 200 and more persons be provided and also that there be provided the possibility for persons present in the courtroom to make video recordings of the judicial session.

"In and of itself the submission of such an unprecedented petition to the court is for Russia an extraordinary event, attention to which is riveted not only in all of Russia but throughout the world also, since Jehovah's Witnesses are not only a well known and recognized religion in Russia but also a famous Christian religion worldwide, that is professed in an overwhelming majority of countries and territories of the world. After the posting of the aforementioned information on the website of the Supreme Court of the RF, the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia received numerous requests for clarification of the date and time of the hearing from representatives of local religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses, state bodies, news media, rights advocacy organizations, representatives of embassies of various countries, believers, and other persons," one of the petitions says. "Orally they express their desire to be immediately present for the consideration of this case."

The hearings will begin on 5 April 2017 at 10:00 in the Supreme Court of Russia, located at the address: Moscow, ul. Povarskaia, 13. The closest metro stations are Barrikadnaia and Arbatskaia. (tr. by PDS, posted 25 March 2017)

Russia Religion News Current News Items

bruceq · March 31, 2017

AMAZING - THE MOST READ NEWS ITEM IN RUSSIA AT THE TASS RUSSIAN NEWS AGENCY IS ON JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES !!!

Former president of Russian Baptists sets Jehovah's Witnesses case in wider context

INTERVIEW: WITH PASTOR YURY SIPKO

Portal-Credo.Ru, 27 March 2017

The second decade is ending when lawlessness, falsehood, violence, bribery, and blackmail have seized all levels of the upper government. The concept of rights and liberties of man and citizen are ridiculed and betrayed. Amendments to the law on freedom of conscience, regulating evangelistic activity, rammed in one fell swoop into the "package of antiterrorism laws" and nobody flinched. Having equated evangelism, an essentially religious activity, with terrorism, the government declared war on believing people. Followers of Scientology have been banned, numerous local organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses have already been prohibited, and the lawsuit for banning the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) testifies to the loss of common sense by people of the government. After all, this declaration of the Ministry of Justice was preceded by numerous criminal acts by people of the government when questionable literature was planted in Jehovah's Witnesses' meetings.

--Can there be a rationale for placing Witnesses' publications in the list of "extremist publications"?

--There is not a single instance when the activity of the JW organization was aimed at support of terrorism or was extremist. In our country, the JW have done nothing illegal and they have never even come close to the territory of politics.

FROM TASS NEWS AGENCY MOSCOW, RUSSIA JUST MINUTES AGO:

Russia designates myriad of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ materials as extremist

World

March 31, 2:24UTC+3
The Jehovah’s Witnesses center underwent an unscheduled inspection of documents from February 8 to 27

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MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. In the period of 2009 through 2016, the Russian Justice Ministry recognized 95 materials circulated by the Jehovah’s Witnesses Managerial Center in Russia religious organization as the ones having an extremist nature, the ministry said in a report at its official homepage.

Jehovah's Witnesses employ modern technology in their defense

RUSSIAN JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES LAUNCH HASHTAG IN SOCIAL NETWORKS BECAUSE OF THREAT OF BANNING THEIR ACTIVITY IN THE COUNTRY

Portal-Credo.ru, 25 March 2017

Late in March Russian Jehovah's Witnesses began a campaign for promoting on the Internet the hashtag #StopJWBan in order to attract attention to the threat of a ban on their confession. Thanks to the action, in just one day almost 20 thousand persons viewed on YouTube a video appeal of Vasily Kalin, the director of the Administrative Center of their confession, a Portal-Credo.ru correspondent reports.

"They don't let us defend ourself in courts and they do not admit us to major news media. Only the Internet remains," the campaign on the website, stopjwban.blogspot.com, says.

The action is actively connected to believers beyond the boundaries of the country. Twitter users from various countries have published on the aforementioned hashtag photographs of their own letters to Russian authorities, the American president, the United Nations, and other international organizations.

The hearing in the Supreme Court of the RF on the lawsuit of the justice ministry is scheduled for 5 April, which requests declaring the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses to be "extremist" and liquidating it. (tr. by PDS, posted 26 March 2017)

bruceq · March 31, 2017

Russian scholar supports Jehovah's Witnesses

MAKSIM SHEVCHENKO: "THIS LAWSUIT VIOLATES FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE"

Video by Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 30 March 2017

Maksim Leonardovich Shevchenko is the president of the Center for Strategic Studies of Religion and Politics in the Modern World and a member of the Council for Development of Civil society and Human Rights under the president of the Russian federation.

"I consider that this lawsuit, of course, violates fundamental principles of freedom of conscience inasmuch as it is difficult to call the Jehovah's Witnesses an extremist organization. Jehovah's Witnesses have not been detected in either any terrorism acts or evil intentions. The Witnesses do not call for any armed actions, terrorist organizations, or disobedience.

"The attempt is made to accuse Witnesses of not donating blood. But there is a mass of Orthodox groups, or Muslims, or Jews even more so who show the same care towards blood, considering it the sacred bearer of life, for example. So it is possible to go too far.

"I think, of course, that Witnesses are persecuted for only one reason—that working in accordance with the principle "from man to man," they constitute serious competition for the Russian Orthodox Church in a number of regions. And I consider that Jehovah's Witnesses, as an organization that was born in Russia in the 19th century, are, if not traditional, at least a native Russian organization. Its American affiliate, Watchtower, cannot define the face of this organization, just as the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) cannot define the face of Russian Orthodoxy.

"Jehovah's Witnesses were imprisoned in stalinist camps and in nazi camps and, in general, they professed their faith firmly and strongly. Those who deal with Witnesses in personal life, when it is not a matter of religious questions but simply human relations, know that as a rule they are very decent, honest people, who do not steal or drink and who can be trusted.

"If it is possible in this way to ban the organization, whose members number in hundreds of thousands, then that means it is possible to repress other religious or public worldview groups quite easily. I consider that this is arbitrariness, and it is impossible to agree with this arbitrariness in any way. And one must protect the rights of citizens of the Russian federation who are members of this religious organization, in a judicial manner.

"And contemporary persecutions seem to me simply absurd. I do not understand how they are meaningful even for those who initiate them. What, is it simply to make a check mark? That we will suffocate those who are choking? It seems to me this is the unpleasant manner of the Russian security structures and judicial system. Here there obviously is the hand of influential public organizations, the Moscow patriarchate and its sympathizers at high levels of security services, who think that in prohibiting the Witnesses they are fulfilling some kind of supposed duty before Russian Orthodoxy.

"Therefore, frankly speaking, I think the ban to be unconstitutional and a violation of fundamental principles of freedom of conscience and of the very essence of the law on extremist activity." (tr. by PDS, posted 30 March 2017)

Russian transcript posted on website of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 30 March 2017

THIS IS FROM THE "ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE"

Russia’s Misuse of Terrorism and Extremism Laws to Restrict the Freedom of Thought, Conscience, Religion or Belief

As delivered by Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. Kate M. Byrnes
to the Permanent Council, Vienna
March 30, 2017

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief is a pillar of the OSCE’s concept of comprehensive security. In the Helsinki Final Act, we determined that “participating States will respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief,” and that states “will recognize and respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience.” In Copenhagen in 1990, we reaffirmed that “this right includes freedom to change one’s religion or belief and freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief, either alone or in community with others, in public or in private, through worship, teaching, practice and observance.” More recently in 2010 in Astana, we determined that “greater efforts must be made to promote freedom of religion or belief….” These decisions demonstrate recognition by all 57 participating States that the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief remains essential to maintaining human dignity, and to ensuring security in the OSCE region.

The United States is, therefore, extremely concerned by the Russian government’s actions targeting members of religious minorities, including the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Crimean Tatars, and others, under the façade of combating “extremism.” More recently, on March 15, the Russian Ministry of Justice suspended the activities of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and asked the Supreme Court to dissolve the Jehovah’s Witnesses Administrative Center and its 395 local religious organizations for supposed “extremist activity.” Should the Supreme Court grant the Ministry of Justice’s request, we understand that there effectively would be no further opportunity for appeal within the Russian court system. If property held by these local organizations were to be confiscated by the state, the local organizations would likely cease to exist as legal entities, resulting in the complete legal dissolution of a religious group that has been present in Russia since the 1800s. Should this occur and Jehovah’s Witnesses continue their activities, individual Jehovah’s Witnesses could risk criminal prosecution simply for gathering to practice their faith.

Local and regional authorities have been targeting Jehovah’s Witnesses for years in Russia, as authorities have sought to shutter local branches on baseless “extremism” grounds.

Mr. Chair, colleagues, let me be clear – the threat to our region from violent extremism and terrorism is real. However, the prosecution of members of peaceful religious minority groups for “extremism” serves only to distract from and undermine our mutual efforts to combat true violent threats.

The United States urges Russian authorities to abide by Russia’s international obligations and OSCE commitments. We therefore call upon Russian authorities to withdraw their request to liquidate the Jehovah’s Witnesses Administrative Center, stop their overall repression of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, allow Jehovah’s Witnesses to enjoy their rights to freedom of religion and peaceful assembly without interference, as guaranteed also by the Russian Federation’s own constitution, and ensure that Russia’s “anti-terrorism” and “anti-extremism” legislation is not misused to target members of religious minorities. We call on Russia to respect the right of all of its residents to exercise the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief.

In closing, let me add that the United States looks forward to the upcoming OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on the topic of the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief. We hope all participating States will support the Chairmanship’s effort to hold this event, and look forward to a principled discussion of this important topic.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

bruceq · March 31, 2017

ONE OF MY BIBLE STUDIES YESTERDAY CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ARE THE TRUE RELIGION BECAUSE OF WHAT IS HAPPENING IN RUSSIA. HE NOTICED THAT ONLY THE WITNESSES AND NO OTHER RELIGION IS TARGETED TO BE BANNED ON APRIL 5. HE SAID "THERE ARE OVER 2,000 RELIGIONS IN RUSSIA AND THEY ARE PICKING ON A SMALL PEACEFUL RELIGION THAT CANNOT FIGHT BACK AS MOST WOULD DO. WHY ONLY THE WITNESSES?" HE SAID IT IS NOW OBVIOUS THAT THEY HAVE THE TRUTH. MANY RELIGIONS ARE BEING RESTRICTED IN RUSSIA BUT ONLY ONE HAS BEEN SUBMITTED TO THE SUPREME COURT TO BE ABOLISHED !!!

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Posts posted by bruceq

UNITED NATIONS RIGHTS EXPERTS URGE RUSSIA TO DROP JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES LAWSUIT WHICH THREATENS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Thursday, March 30,

Thursday, March 30,

Worldwide Letter-writing Campaign Protests Proposed Religious Ban

Rochester, NY: Jehovah’s Witnesses plead for freedom, mercy, in Russia crackdown

The University of Missouri’s Religion News Service: Jehovah’s Witnesses Fear Russian Government may Ban Them

Personally, I was hoping to read True Tom’s rendition of the Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It song, as a rolling commentary, oh well!

The point of this exercise was to give our brothers in Russia hope with solidarity. Psalm 133:1 Context: How Pleasant to Live in Unity!

"Note: Please don't send us abusive Emails that attack the WTS. This section is about the WTS; It is not an official Jehovah's Witness website.

Jehovah's Witnesses developing strategy to defend suit for prohibition

Jehovah's Witnesses not properly notified of suspension

In Southern Russia, activities of head office of Jehovah's Witnesses suspended because of accusations of extremism

Jehovah's Witnesses case viewed from far south of Russia

Enormous attention to Jehovah's Witnesses case

Former president of Russian Baptists sets Jehovah's Witnesses case in wider context

Russia designates myriad of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ materials as extremist

Jehovah's Witnesses employ modern technology in their defense

Russian scholar supports Jehovah's Witnesses

Russia’s Misuse of Terrorism and Extremism Laws to Restrict the Freedom of Thought, Conscience, Religion or Belief

Important Information

"Note: Please don't send us abusive Emails that
attack the WTS. This section is about the WTS;
It is not an official Jehovah's Witness website.