Russia jails member of ‘extremist’ Jehovah’s Witnesses for six years

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 Mr Christensen, who was seized by police in a raid on a prayer meeting in 2017, of holding fund-raisers and attracting new followers with religious pamphlets.

Mr Christensen told the court last week that he was being persecuted “for being a religious believer who loves his neighbour as himself ”.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have said they will appeal against the ruling while human rights groups have denounced the ban on the organisation and called for Mr Christensen’s release.

The conviction of the 46-year-old, who has lived in Russia since 2000 and has a family, is part of a years-long attempt to abolish Jehovah’s Witnesses.

In 2017, the supreme court declared the group an “extremist organisation” like neo-nazi and Islamist groups, banned its activities and ordered its 395 branches in Russia to close. Some 100 Jehovah’s Witnesses face extremism charges carrying prison sentences of up to 10 years. More than 20 are in custody and 160 have fled abroad. The organisation says it has 170,000 members in Russia.

When asked about the ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses in December, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said it was “complete nonsense” to “label representatives of religious communities as members of destructive, even terrorist, organisations”. But he said it was also “necessary to take into account the country and society in which we live”.