Anonymous, regarding your comment:
At no point did the courts ban the religion of Jehovah's
Witnesses or the Bible or the meeting of other groups or religions not related
to the Administrative Center,
Banning the Administrative center and the local 395 chapters
equates to banning the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In 2009, the Taganrog
LRO was liquidated. Sixteen JW’s who met for meetings were criminally charged
in 2013. Groups and religions that are not related to the Administrative center
are those who have either not yet registered themselves or those whose
registrations are pending as of the Supreme court ruling. So if Jehovah’s
Witnesses are declared extremists even after the appeal, the decision will be
interpreted as a de facto ban on the religious activity of JW’s and the law enforcement
authorities will carry on investigations on all JW’s and will criminalize them.
Some points to remember about the Russian ban:
1.
On April 20, 2017, Russian Supreme court not
just closed the Administrative center, but criminalized the activities of the
Center and declared it as extremist. Here are the words of Judge Yuri Ivanenko:
“The Supreme Court has ruled to sustain
the claim of Russia's ministry of justice and deem the 'Administrative Centre
of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia' organisation extremist, eliminate it
and ban its activity in Russia,”
2.
What does this mean? Now, in Russia, JW’s have
the same status as ISIS. Each of the over 170,000 Witnesses could be criminally
prosecuted merely for meeting for worship, reading the Bible together, or preaching.
(irrespective of whether they belong to the banned LRO or not.)
3. Russia
has harassed and closed many non-orthodox religious faiths (e.g. Scientology),
however, this is the first time that
Russia has criminalized or declared a registered religious group as
extremist.
4.
The Supreme Court ban is just one appeal away
from being handed over to the police, who would then start investigating all meetings
of JW’s.
