Russia jails member of Jehovah’s Witnesses

A Russian court has given a six-year prison sentence to a Danish Jehovah’s Witness, the first member of the pacifist Christian sect to be convicted since it was banned by Moscow as extremist. A judge in the city of Oryol found Dennis Christensen guilty of ‘‘organising the activity of an extremist organisation’’. Investigators had accused Christensen of holding fund-raisers and attracting new followers with religious pamphlets. Christensen told the court that he was being persecuted ‘‘for being a religious believer who loves his neighbour as himself’’.