RUSSIA SEEKS SUPREME COURT APPROVAL TO LIQUIDATE JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES ORGANISATIONS

MOSCOW, Russia – The Vladirmir Putin-led Russian Government has intensified activities aimed at liquidating activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.

The latest move is coming from Russia’s Ministry of Justice (Ministry) which has filed a claim with the Supreme Court, seeking “to declare the religious organization, specifically, the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organisation, ban its activity, and liquidate it.

On March 15, 2017, the Supreme Court posted notice on its official website that it had received the claim from the Ministry.

“The Ministry did not notify Jehovah’s Witnesses that it had taken this latest step in its ongoing attack on their worship”, the witnesses said in a statement.

A decision by the Supreme Court in favor of the claim brought by the Ministry would have dire consequences for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.

“The Witnesses could lose properties dedicated to religious worship, almost 400 legal entities could be dissolved, and each of the over 170,000 Witnesses could be criminally prosecuted merely for meeting for worship, reading the Bible together, or talking to others about their faith”, they added.




Reacting to the decelopment, Vasiliy Kalin, a representative of the Administrative Center in Russia, said “The profound desire of each of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia is just to be able to worship our God peacefully.

“For over 100 years, the authorities in Russia have trampled on the guarantees of their own laws, which grant us this right. I was just a boy when Stalin exiled my family to Siberia merely because we were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“It is sad and reprehensible that my children and grandchildren should be facing a similar fate. Never did I expect that we would again face the threat of religious persecution in modern Russia,” he said.

ALSO READ SPECIAL APPEAL TO PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN ON JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES IN RUSSIA