Russia outlaws Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist sect

RUSSIA has banned Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist organisation, placing the pacifist sect in the company of neo-nazi and jihadi groups.

The justice ministry added the Jehovah’s Witnesses administrative centre in Russia and 395 local branches to its register of banned organisations yesterday. Criminal charges can now be brought against believers for activities such as proselytising or just meeting.

The move was based on an April supreme court decision that declared Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organisation and ordered its property to be turned over to the state.

The justice ministry had testified that the millenarian group violated Russia’s vague law against extremism, noting that its “religious literature forbids blood transfusions to ill members of the organisation”.

“What’s going on now reminds me of Soviet times. Now as then many of our fellow believers are gathering in flats because they were shutting down our kingdom halls, many of which will now be confiscated,” said Yaroslav Sivulsky, a spokesman for the European Association of Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses, adding that the group owned hundreds of buildings in Russia.

The 175,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia typically refuse to vote and demand alternatives to mandatory military service.

Authorities in several cities have already banned Jehovah’s Witnesses and prosecuted believers. In May, Danish citizen Dennis Christensen was arrested at a Jehovah’s Witness bible reading in Oryol and remains in pretrial detention on extremism charges.

United Nations human rights experts said the case against Jehovah’s Witnesses “signals a dark future for all religious freedom in Russia”. Mr Sivulsky said Jehovah’s Witnesses would appeal against the ban to the European Court of Human Rights.