Emmanuel Ukudolo
January 02, 2016 – Jehovah’s Witnesses, or JW for short are a peaceful religious organisation that propagates their belief wherever they are based on the scriptures.
As followers of Jesus Christ, they obey Jesus’ command at Mathew 24:14 which says “This good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come”.
Consequently, they preach from house to house, employing all modern but legal means, including the internet.
They love their neighbour, which is the identifying mark of true Christianity based on Mathew 22: 37 , 38 and 39. “‘You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind…The second, like it, is this: ‘You must love your neighbour as yourself.’
For love of neighbour, they refrain from engaging in any activity, i.e, war that would harm their neighbour. They gather routinely in modest places of worship called Kingdom Hall for interchange of encouragement based on Hebrew 10: 23, 24: “Let us hold firmly the public declaration of our hope without wavering, for the one who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another so as to incite to love and fine works, not forsaking our meeting together, as some have the custom, but encouraging one another, and all the more so as you see the day drawing near”.
For adhering to these scriptural guidelines, they have been maligned, branded criminals and in some unprintable names to hang them by governments even when local laws uphold fundamental rights, such as freedom of movement, speech and association.
Here are some cities where these fundamental human rights have been curtailed such that preaching in whatever means and meeting for worship is seen as a criminal offence, with imprisonment of varying terms as punishment.
RUSSIA
TAGANROG
SAMARA
ABINSK
AZERBAIJAN
GANJA
SOUTH KOREA
INDIA
In Russia, for instance, after a retrial spanning 11 months, the Taganrog City Court convicted 16 Jehovah’s Witnesses on criminal charges for organizing and attending peaceful religious meetings. The court based its decision on a criminal law that punishes individuals who organize and participate in extremist activity based on Taganrog court’s earlier misapplication, in 2009, of Russia’s legislation on extremism.
On November 30, 2015, Judge A. V. Vasyutchenko sentenced four of the Witnesses to over five years in prison for organizing religious services and fined each of them 100,000 rubles ($1,511 U.S.). The judge fined the other 12 defendants from 20,000 to 70,000 rubles ($300 to $1,050 U.S.) each. However, the judge immediately suspended the sentences and waived the fines.
Over 800 Witnesses living in Taganrog are concerned about the consequences for meeting together peacefully to discuss the Bible and pray. “The court effectively told us, ‘Renounce your faith or face punishment as repeat offenders,’” said Aleksandr Skvortsov, one of those convicted.
Following the pattern in Taganrog, authorities in Samara and Abinsk have misapplied the Law on Counteracting Extremist Activity to the Witnesses’ peaceful worship and have liquidated the local Witnesses’ legal entities.
Since March 2015, authorities have refused to allow the Witnesses to import any religious literature—even Bibles. In July, Russia earned the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world to ban the official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses, jw.org.
The Witnesses are contesting these negative decisions in domestic courts and have submitted 28 applications to the European Court of Human Rights, seeking remedy for human rights violations in Russia.
South Korea
Over 600 young men have been imprisoned in South Korea for refusing military service because of their personal religious beliefs, criminally convicted, and sentenced to 18 months of imprisonment. They have submitted complaints to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. At present, the South Korean government convicts and imprisons about 40 to 50 Witnesses each month, in defiance of international law.
One of those imprisoned is Jun-hyeok An. Like the others, he does not consider himself to be a criminal. ”I do not believe that I should be punished with imprisonment for holding to my personal religious convictions. If the government made alternative civilian service available, I would accept it. My sincere personal conviction to bring harm to no one certainly does not merit a criminal conviction and punishment”, he said.
INDIA
Registered in Mumbai in 1978, the Witnesses benefit from India’s constitution, which grants the right to practice, profess, and propagate one’s faith based on the landmark case of Bijoe Emmanuel v. State of Kerala in the Supreme Court of India. But Jehovah’s Witnesses generally worship under restriction. In some states, they have been victims of mob attacks and other acts of religious intolerance.
In 1977 the Supreme Court made a distinction between spreading one’s religion and converting others. It held that no one has the right to convert another person and that the anti-conversion laws passed by some states were lawful.
When dealing with the police, mobs who attack the Witnesses often refer to what the court said and falsely claim that they caught the Witnesses converting people. In states without anti-conversion laws, many accuse the Witnesses of blasphemy.
As a result, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been the target of over 150 violent mob attacks since 2002. “Local authorities often compound the problem because they do not adequately protect the victims or prosecute the attackers”, says jw.org. Jehovah’s Witnesses in India continue to meet with government officials and to apply to the courts in order to protect right to practice their religion freely.
AZERBAIJAN
In Azerbaijan, there is frequent raids of meeting places by policemen including private homes in cities like Ganja and other areas. For instance in November 14, 2015, police carried out a raid on a meeting for worship in Ganja, the second-largest city in Azerbaijan.
“Police stopped the religious service and took 27 people to the Ganja Kapaz District Police Station. There, police charged 12 of them—including Mr. Niftaliyev—with violating laws on participating in a religious meeting. In closed hearings held between November 18 and 25, the Ganja Kapaz District Court fined nine individuals 2,000 manat ($1,911 U.S.) each for their part in a “religious meeting conducted without appropriate permission.”
In most cases, policemen enter private home without search warrants or a court order and do not properly identify themselves or the reason why they have come. They stop the meeting, confiscate personal Bibles and religious literature, videotape the scene, and insult and verbally threaten those in attendance.
Quite often, the policemen take everyone in attendance, including children and the elderly, to the police station due to inability of the JW to obtain State registration.
The Ganja Kapaz District Court used that reasoning when it fined those who participated in the November 14 meeting, stating that “the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses has not obtained official permission from the relevant authorities to operate in the city of Ganja.”
But contrary to that ruling, there is no law in Azerbaijan that requires prior state permission to meet for worship. According to jw.org, Article 21 of the Law on Freedom of Religious Beliefs states: “Worship, . . . religious rites and ceremonies shall be freely carried out in places of worship . . . as well as in apartments and houses of citizens.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses have registration in the capital, Baku, and have filed numerous applications for registration in Ganja since 2010. However, the State Committee for Work with Religious Associations has denied their application each time for alleged technical errors or has not replied at all.
Till date, the Witnesses in Azerbaijan have 21 applications pending with the European Court of Human Rights for incidents in which authorities interfered with their right to freedom of religion and freedom to manifest their belief. Jehovah’s Witnesses are requesting government of Azerbaijan to extend to them the rights that the nation’s laws guarantee to all citizens—including freedom of worship.
