Interesting news
Friday 13 March 2009
RUSSIA: NATIONWIDE STRIKE AT JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
Public prosecutors across Russia have conducted more than 500 check-ups on
local Jehovah's Witness communities since mid-February. Jehovah's Witnesses
told Forum 18 News Service they believe prosecutors are "trawling" for
information to shut down their headquarters in St Petersburg and over 400
dependent organisations. "Nothing else makes sense," their representative
Yaroslav Sivulsky told Forum 18. Documents seen by Forum 18 show the
nationwide sweep was ordered by First Assistant General Public Prosecutor
Aleksandr Bastrykin. Forum 18 asked the General Prosecutor's Office in
Moscow why the investigations were ordered and asked for a copy of the
instruction to local prosecutors, but so far has received no response. In
its instruction ordering check-ups locally, the Moscow Regional Public
Prosecutor's Office complained that the Jehovah's Witnesses' missionary
activity and rejection of military service and blood transfusions "provoke
a negative attitude towards its activity from the population and
traditional Russian confessions". Prosecutors have been investigating the
St Petersburg Jehovah's Witness headquarters since 2004 but have failed to
find any grounds to close it down.
RUSSIA: NATIONWIDE STRIKE AT JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>
In the space of just three weeks, Jehovah's Witness communities across
Russia have undergone 500 state check-ups. "That's a conservative estimate
- we're definitely talking the whole country," Yaroslav Sivulsky remarked
to Forum 18 News Service from the Jehovah's Witnesses' St Petersburg
headquarters on 10 March. "Our telephones here are red hot from people
calling to report incidents and ask why it's happening."
The nationwide sweep, ordered by First Assistant General Public Prosecutor
Aleksandr Bastrykin, is linked to an investigation into the Jehovah's
Witnesses' St Petersburg headquarters, the Moscow Regional Public
Prosecutor's Office explains in its order for check-ups sent to district
subdivisions on 13 February.
Having failed to find grounds for prosecution since the St Petersburg
investigation began in 2004, the authorities are now "trawling" for
information to shut down the Jehovah's Witnesses' Russian headquarters and
over 400 dependent organisations, Sivulsky believes: "Nothing else makes
sense."
Jehovah's Witnesses' "missionary activity, social isolation, refusal to
perform military service, accept blood transfusions and other religiously
motivated restrictions required of members of this organisation provoke a
negative attitude towards its activity from the population and traditional
Russian confessions," the Moscow Regional Public Prosecutor's Office order
notes.
Forum 18 has also viewed similar recent instructions for urgent check-ups
on Jehovah's Witnesses issued by Sakhalin Regional, Udmurtia's Sarapul
Municipal and Khabarovsk's Industrial District Public Prosecutor's Offices.
On 12 March Forum 18 asked the General Public Prosecutor's Office by fax
when and why Bastrykin's order was issued, as well as for a copy of the
document. A Press Department spokesperson promised a reply on 13 March
after 3pm Moscow time. However, no response was received by the end of the
working day. As of 13 March, the website of the General Public Prosecutor's
Office made no mention of the order either.
"They are checking anything and everything that can be checked," Sivulsky
told Forum 18. Moscow and Sakhalin Regional Public Prosecutor's Offices
recommend co-ordinated check-ups involving the police, FSB security police
and Justice Ministry departments in their orders.
Education departments appear to be following a particular line of
investigation. A 9 February Mostovskoi (Krasnodar Region) District
Education Department letter to local head teachers requests information by
5 March on "interference by religious - including Jehovah's Witness -
organisations in the teaching process at educational institutions,
enticement of minors into the activity of religious organisations without
the knowledge of parents or guardians, cases of refusing blood transfusions
or other treatment to minors, other violations of pupils' rights by members
of and participants in religious organisations."
A 17 February letter from Kholmsk (Sakhalin Region) Municipal Education
Department asks head teachers to respond to three questions by the
following day: Does the Kholmsk Jehovah's Witness organisation conduct
activity in educational institutions? Do any teachers belong to this
organisation? What work is being done in institutions to prevent employees
from being drawn into this organisation?
An 18 February telegram from Stavropol Municipal Education Department asks
head teachers for information by the following day on cases of "social
isolation of followers of Jehovah's Witness teachings and refusal to study
in connection with any bans or restrictions by this religious
organisation." Also in Stavropol Region, a 17-year-old Jehovah's Witness
pupil in the town of Izobilny reports on 24 February that his teacher was
asked to compile a report about him for the local Education Department,
including whether he has suicidal tendencies.
None of the check-up orders refer to extremism, Sivulsky of the Jehovah's
Witnesses told Forum 18. Parallel attempts to prosecute individual
Jehovah's Witness communities for distribution of allegedly extremist
literature continue apace, however. Religious literature from other
confessions has also been accused of extremism. Translations of the works
of Turkish Islamic theologian Said Nursi have been banned in Russia
following such claims by the authorities (see F18News 29 May 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1136>).
On 25 February North Ossetia Public Prosecutor's Office filed suit with
the local Supreme Court for the liquidation of the republic's four
Jehovah's Witness organisations in Alagir, Beslan, Mozdok and Vladikavkaz.
As well as distribution of allegedly extremist religious literature, the
suit cites a number of grounds for the organisations' closure, including
Jehovah's Witnesses' allegedly anti-constitutional refusal of blood
transfusions and religious activity outside the geographical location where
they are registered. It also notes that four Vladikavkaz Jehovah's
Witnesses have refused to perform alternative military service - in one
case resulting in a Soviet District Court sentence of 180 hours' forced
labour - and that the husband of a member of the Beslan organisation has
filed for divorce because she is a Jehovah's Witness.
A hearing at North Ossetia Supreme Court was slated for 12 March, but the
Jehovah's Witnesses requested an alternative date because their lawyers
were already due to appear in a similar extremism case in Salsk
(Rostov-on-Don Region) on that day.
After participating in the 12 March Salsk hearing, New York-based
Jehovah's Witness lawyer James Andrik told Forum 18 that the court is so
far relying solely on the expert literary analysis of Jehovah's Witness
literature by Rostov Centre for Court Studies as evidence (see F18News 14
July 2008 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1159>).
In a statement to Salsk Municipal Court, Andrik pointed out that in the
Soviet Union "thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses were imprisoned or subject
to other hardships and restrictions of their rights as a result of their
religious activity, literature, and beliefs." While exonerated as victims
of "unfounded repression" in 1996, however, Russian government
representatives are now "poised to repeat the victimization of Jehovah's
Witnesses," he maintains.
Thousands of kilometres apart, municipal courts in Salsk and Gorno-Altaisk
(Altai Republic) both began determining whether Jehovah's Witness
literature is extremist on 19 January (see F18News 16 January 2009
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1241>). The Gorno-Altaisk
court has commissioned an expert literary analysis by linguists at Kemerovo
State University. Court expert analyses of Jehovah's Witness literature in
similar cases in Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg are still ongoing,
Sivulsky told Forum 18 (see F18News 14 July 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1159>).
Under the 2002 Extremism Law, even a low-level court may rule literature
extremist. It is then automatically added to the Federal List of Extremist
Materials and banned throughout Russia. The List's 325 titles as of 13
March typically suggest extreme nationalist or anti-Semitic content. Most
theological entries - the inclusion of which is also disputed - are Islamic
(see most recently F18News 16 January 2009
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1241>).
While it succeeded in banning the Jehovah's Witnesses' Moscow local
religious organisation on other grounds in 2004, the Russian capital's
Golovinsky District Court failed to find it guilty of extremism (see
F18News 25 May 2004 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=327>).
Officials in dozens of cities across Russia moved to block Jehovah's
Witnesses' regional congresses last summer (see F18News 22 July 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1161>). (END)