Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia Brace for a Final Blow

[Guest Kurt]

The Jehovah’s Witnesses are no strangers to harassment in Putin’s Russia. But they may be about to be dealt a final blow.

March 6, 2017

After more than a decade of legal wrangling, controversial anti-terrorism laws are set to deliver the final blow to Russia’s embattled Jehovah’s Witnesses.

For years, Russia has chased the group in a tireless game of cat and mouse. Authorities hold shipments of Bibles at the border. Police raids are timed to break up Sunday services. Meeting houses across the country are shuttered.

But now the group's religious leaders say their situation is critical. Prosecutors, who call the group an extremist sect, responsible for tearing apart families and indoctrinating young people, are now set to ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses from the country for good.

“We consider this a serious threat,” says Robert Warren, a spokesperson for Jehovah’s Witnesses International. “This decision could influence not just Russia, but the whole former Soviet Union,” he says.

Russia’s 175,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, who fear physical attacks inspired by the government’s campaign, say they just want to spread the word of God.

“We feel this move by the government will actually spark real extremist activity against our believers,” Warren told The Moscow Times.

A Tightening Noose

The looming closure is the result of a long and agonising legal process.

Regional branches of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have long been viewed with suspicion by officials. The group was banned outright in the Russian city of Taganrog in 2014. Other bans quickly followed in Samara and Abinsk.

Then, in early 2016, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ central headquarters near St. Petersburg was issued an official warning to halt their “extremist activity.” The warning arrived at the same time as the organization was banned in five more Russian regions: Belgorod, Birobidzhan, Elista, Oryol and Stary Oskol.

The group’s final appeal against the warning was rejected in January 2017. Now,  authorities can now use any violation of the anti-terror law, — including the distribution of ‘extremist’ materials — to justify shuttering the Jehovah’s Witness headquarters and the organization across the country.

A number of alleged infringements of the law were since discovered during “unscheduled inspection” of the Jehovah’s headquarters last month. As part of the raid, the organization was forced to hand over 73,000 pages of documents. They were also asked to hand over a list of its 2,277 ministers leading Russian congregations, a demand which they refused.

‘Necessary Evil’

While authorities have the power to shut down the church, they might not follow through, says Roman Lunkin, head of the center for the study of Religion and Society at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ European Institute.

“Unlike the Soviet era, Russian authorities are not trying to destroy religion in general,” he says. “They will tolerate many ‘suspicious’ sects or religions as a ‘necessary evil’ including the Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostal churches and some Muslim communities.”

Rather, control is key for the intelligence agencies, Lunkin says. This control could come from the impending threat of closure or by liquidating the church’s central control center and monitoring regional groups.

“By destroying the Jehovah's Witnesses’ centralized management, officials will be able to better control these communities and monitor the groups scattered across the country.”

‘Extremist Bibles'

What is more concerning for some analysts is how Russian authorities are using anti-extremism laws — designed to combat terrorists — to gain control over society.

Alexander Verkhovsky, Director of Moscow's SOVA Center, which monitors abuses of anti-extremism legislation, says authorities have followed anti-extremism legislation to the letter in their bid shutter the Jehovah’s main centre.

“The problem is that those laws are badly formulated,” he said. “It’s very difficult for these organizations to exist without violating one law or another.”

Law enforcement agencies have focused on the “extremist” literature which Jehovah’s Witnesses distribute on streets or by going door to door.

Government-appointed experts — generally working in three-person panels usually comprised of a psychologist, linguist and theologist — have so far banned more than 80 Jehovah’s Witnesses publications. In most cases, the bans are for “portraying other religions in a negative light,” or for trying to persuade Russian men to avoid compulsory military service.

Not everyone agrees with these experts’ testimony.

Lunkin and Verkhovsky fear that anti-extremism laws are often used unfairly by overzealous prosecutors.

“There is a general tendency to [use these laws] in order to increase the police’s influence on the public sphere,” Lunkin says. “This affects religion too.”

With sweeping new anti-terror legislation introduced by Russian President Vladimir Putin just last year, the problem is only set to worsen.

“The legislation we’ve seen come into play between 2015 and 2016 – laws which see religious groups being forced to register themselves and the monitoring of missionary work – has been the most destructive and repressive we’ve seen for many years,” says Lunkin.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses may be among the first organizations to feel the sting of that new legislation. But they say that they will continue to worship regardless.

“My parents were exiled to Siberia because they were Jehovah’s Witnesses,” says Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. “They worshipped even while they were in those camps. We will continue too.”

The Moscow Times

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

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The Russians, who are VERY VERY family oriented ... are about to expel all Jehovah's Witnesses from their lands .... because even by standards made common by the old Soviet Union, WHICH THEY UNDERSTAND ... what we do is petulent, cruel, unreasonable, unfair, and makes no sense whatsoever IN THE WAY IT IS DOGMATICALLY APPLIED.

Like throwing a heavy stone on a flat piece of glass ... necessary Congregational Discipline has EVOLVED from disciplining a wayward Witness to DESTROYING HIS ENTIRE FAMILY RELATIONSHIP, AND ENTIRE FAMILIES.

It CREATES hatred born of self-defense, and actually destroys ENTIRE FAMILIES !

The accusation they make against us is "Extremism".

And just like the Pharisees of old who HAD the law, and mis-applied it ... the shoe fits.

If we are expelled from the Russian Federation ....

.... it will be BECAUSE WE DESERVE IT.

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... it is common to man and dogs to, after they have destroyed their living environment ... to blame someone else.

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[Guest Kurt]

Media freedom in Russia
On 7 August 2013, the Central District Court of the city of Tver, located 100 miles (roughly 160 km) northwest of Moscow, ruled that the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses should be banned throughout the Russian Federation. On 22 January 2014 the Regional Court of Tver ruled in favor of Jehovah’s Witnesses and reversed the earlier ruling by the lower court. The Regional Court conducted a new trial, which concluded that the decision of the Central District Court was unjustified, since there was no legal reason to ban the site.
Johovah's Witnesses, 21 January 2014. Retrieved 23 January 2014.
 

[JW Insider]

2 hours ago, Kurt said:

Prosecutors, who call the group an extremist sect, responsible for tearing apart families and indoctrinating young people, are now set to ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses from the country for good.

I understand the claim that we "tear families apart" but we can always point to Jesus' words:

(Matthew 10:34-37) . . .. ³⁴ Do not think I came to bring peace to the earth; I came to bring, not peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I came to cause division, with a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. ³⁶ Indeed, a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. ³⁷ Whoever has greater affection for father or mother than for me is not worthy of me; and whoever has greater affection for son or daughter than for me is not worthy of me.

Does anyone have any documentation on exactly what the complaint is behind the term "indoctrinating young people"? Is this a concern over young baptisms that feed into the disfellowshipping practice. Is it the government's fear of "cult" mentality that we saw with France? (Probably just an excuse) In Bulgaria it was about not even serving in supportive civilian roles to replace military service and the fact that we disfellowshipped those who chose to accept blood even when it was chosen as a life-saving alternative. In Bulgaria, of course, we merely invoked the change that was already in the works in some countries to allow JWs to serve in non-combatant civilian roles as alternative military service. On the blood issue we changed it from disfellowshipping to disassociation, which sounded different to the government, even though we clarified that nothing had changed on the congregational level regarding the shunning, etc., since we were to treat disfellowshipped and disassociated exactly the same.

I went to visit Denmark last year, and was suprised to learn that almost no one pays attention to the name and beliefs of the major "national religion." It's like a state religion, that is just there to provide services for marriages and funerals, and otherwise no one seems to care. This is one of the things that makes Islam and Jehovah's Witnesses "scary" to some of them.

I suspect that Islam, and Baptist and JW missionaries looking for converts is seen as disruptive for similar reasons. The "state religion" after years of supposed atheism has drifted into just a kind of traditional decoration that symbolizes unity and peace. There is a Russian Orthodox hierarchy, but they don't ask for any political influence. I think the Russian government has therefore become more sensitive to any religious groups who take their religion too seriously, and have their own "judicial systems" within these organizations. It's one of the things that Spain complains about with JWs, they don't even want the Catholics to have an internal judicial system. (Especially when crime is treated only as sin, and there is no transparency into what goes on behind the curtain.) Of course that might be an overreaction in Spain because their reputation suffered over the Inquisition, just like Germany tends to react at Nazism more harshly than surrounding nations.

[David Normand]

You know, you may be correct in your statement that Russians are very very family oriented. However, The Russian government decriminalizing of physical spouse abuse would seem to be at odd with your statement and also lend credence that the Russian legal attack against Jehovah's Witnesses is based upon something else entirely. Could it be that the Russian authorities are using family problems as a pretext rather than really getting to the heart of the matter which is that Jehovah's Witnesses don't support the military and also siphon members away from the Russian orthodox church? 

[Cookie Mace Pack]

Sad but to be expected.