On June 7, 2022, the ECHR declared illegal the liquidation of the Administrative Center and 395 more legal entities of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the ban on their activities and the seizure of property. It was illegal to ban printed publications, periodicals and the official website. The criminal persecution of believers must stop, and the prisoners must be released.

The decision was issued in the case “MRO of Taganrog and others v. Russia” (32401/10), in which 20 complaints filed by Jehovah’s Witnesses from 2010 to 2019 were combined at once. The total number of applicants is 1444, of which 1014 are individuals and 430 legal entities (some applicants appear in more than one complaint). According to the ruling, in total, Russia is obliged to pay the applicants EUR 59,617,458 in respect of pecuniary damage (mainly seized property) and EUR 3,447,250 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

By its actions, Russia violated the provisions of several articles of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 9), freedom of expression (Article 10) and freedom of assembly and association (Article 11). In addition, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (the right to respect for property) was violated.

Yaroslav Sivulsky of the European Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses said: “We are grateful to the Strasbourg Court for its authoritative qualified legal understanding of the unprecedented situation that has developed in Russia with Jehovah’s Witnesses. We hope that today’s decision will help the Russian authorities to restore the rule of law and rights in relation to more than 175,000 believers of our religion in the near future.”

Below is a brief history of all 20 complaints that resulted in this ruling. {jw-russia.org}

• Local Religious Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog and Others v. Russian Federation, application 32401/10 (Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia) . In January 2007, by order of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Rostov Region, together with the FSB, initiated the termination of the activities of the LRO of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog (Rostov Region). As a result, on September 11, 2009, the Rostov Regional Court ruled to liquidate the LRO, ban its activities, recognize 34 printed publications as extremist, and also confiscate the liturgical building with the adjacent territory. Although the facts pointed to a coordinated campaign to discriminate against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on December 8, 2009 dismissed the appeal without detailed consideration of the circumstances of the case. On June 1, 2010, the case was submitted to the ECtHR.
• “Local Religious Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the City of Gorno-Altaysk and Others v. Russian Federation”, Complaint 44285/10 (Gorno-Altaysk LRO and Others v. Russia) . On December 22, 2008, the prosecutor filed an application with the Gorno-Altai City Court to recognize 27 religious publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist. The court appointed a comprehensive psycholinguistic religious examination of these publications, while not a single expert in the field of religious studies took part in the study. As a result, on October 1, 2009, the court recognized 18 publications as extremist and decided to include them in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. Earlier in June of the same year, security forces raided the place of worship of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Gorno-Altaisk, as well as the homes of believers. During the searches, religious literature and the personal property of believers were confiscated. The Gorno-Altai LRO of Jehovah’s Witnesses filed an appeal, but on January 27, 2010, the Supreme Court of the Altai Republic dismissed it, upholding the decision of the city court. Later, on July 23 of the same year, the case was submitted to the ECtHR.
• Boltnev v. Russia, application 3488/11 (Boltnyev v. Russia) . On May 21, 2010, Jehovah’s Witness Igor Boltnev and his fellow believer Farkhod Mardonov were detained by police on a street in the city of Nizhnekamsk. The men’s documents were checked and they were asked to show the contents of their bags. Having found religious literature there, the law enforcers took the believers to the police station, photographed and fingerprinted them, and confiscated literature, Bibles, and personal notes. The administrative cases against the two men were heard by different justices of the peace. On June 9, 2010, each of the believers was found guilty and fined 1,000 rubles due to the fact that among the seized literature a publication was found that was recognized as extremist. On July 7, 2010, the Nizhnekamsk City Court of the Republic of Tatarstan rejected the appeals of Boltnev and Mardonov. The believers filed complaints with the ECtHR. (See also Mardonov v. Russian Federation.)
• Mardonov v. Russia, application 3492/11 (Mardonov v. Russia) . On May 21, 2010, Jehovah’s Witness Farhod Mardonov and his fellow believer Igor Boltnev were detained by police on a street in the city of Nizhnekamsk. The men’s documents were checked and they were asked to show the contents of their bags. Having found religious literature there, the law enforcers took the believers to the police station, photographed and fingerprinted them, and confiscated literature, Bibles, and personal notes. The police report stated that discrepancies were found as a result of comparing the texts of the Bibles seized from believers and the Bible of the Synodal Translation approved by the Russian Orthodox Church. Despite the fact that the men were detained at the same time, their cases were heard by different judges. On June 9, 2010, both believers were fined 1,000 rubles due to the fact that among the literature confiscated from them, a publication was found that was recognized as extremist. On July 7, 2010, the Nizhnekamsk City Court of the Republic of Tatarstan dismissed the appeals of Mardonov and Boltnev. The believers filed complaints with the ECtHR. (See also Boltnev v. Russian Federation.)
• Aliyev v. Russia, application 14821/11 (Aliyev v. Russia) . On March 31, 2010, the Birobidzhan police and FSB disrupted a worship service at which Alam Aliyev, along with 50 other Jehovah’s Witnesses, discussed printed excerpts from a Bible book. A month later, Aliyev was accused of distributing banned literature among fellow believers. In April 2010, the magistrate found him guilty and sentenced him to a fine of 3,000 rubles. This decision was approved by the Birobidzhan City Court three months later. The believer’s complaint was registered with the ECtHR on February 8, 2011.
• Fedorin and Others v. Russia, application 17572/11 (Fedorin and Others v. Russia) . In 2010, 85-year-old Aleksey Fedorin and 9 other Jehovah’s Witnesses filed a complaint with the ECtHR for violation of their rights as a result of searches, confiscation and destruction of religious literature carried out by the authorities. Aleksey Fedorin, who was imprisoned for 6 years for his faith in the 1970s, was again detained by a police officer in July 2010 and subjected to an 8-hour interrogation because of the distribution of religious literature among his fellow villagers. He was denied a break for lunch and rest, despite his advanced age and disability. Although the believer claimed that during the period imputed to him he was ill and could not distribute literature, in July 2010 the judge of the Tselinsky District Court of the Rostov Region imposed a fine of 1,000 rubles on him, and ordered the literature to be confiscated and destroyed. In September 2010, the Tselinsky District Court dismissed the believer’s appeal. Nine other applicants from different regions of Russia faced similar treatment from the authorities.
• Chukan and Others v. Russia, Complaint 2269/12 (Chukan and Others v. Russia) . On March 11, 2009, the prosecutor of the Krasnodar Territory filed an application with the court demanding that four publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which were allegedly found in a city park, be recognized as extremist. A linguist from the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Krasnodar Territory considered the content of the publications inadmissible, and on April 22, 2011, the Pervomaisky District Court of Krasnodar recognized 4 publications as extremist. This happened despite the fact that the Rostov Regional Court had already ruled in three of them that there were no signs of extremism in the text. In August 2011, the Krasnodar Regional Court denied the believers’ appeal, leaving the decision in force. Vasily Chukan and Alexander Tkachenko, Jehovah’s Witnesses from Krasnodar, as well as the Local Religious Organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Krasnodar, the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, German and American publishing houses filed a complaint with the ECHR in connection with the infringement of their right to use religious literature.
• Gareyev and Others v. Russia, Complaint 5547/12 (Gareyev and Others v. Russia) . In the fall of 2010, the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia sent more than a ton of printed and audio publications to believers in Kemerovo, none of which was recognized as extremist. On October 26, the police detained the recipients, among them Vitaly Gareev, and took them to the Investigative Committee for questioning. The entire batch was confiscated as “relevant to the criminal case.” In February 2011, believers applied to the Zavodsky District Court, but it did not see any violations in the actions of the security forces. Four months later, the Kemerovo Regional Court took the same position. In January 2012, the believers filed a complaint with the ECtHR.
• “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, German Branch v. Russia”, Complaint 76162/12 (Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and Wachtturm Bibel-Und Traktat-Gesellschaft v Russia) . On July 24, 1997, the State Press Committee of the Russian Federation authorized the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Germany) to distribute the Watchtower and Awake! magazines in Russia. The administrative center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia was the “applicant and distributor”. In 2009 and 2010, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the decision of the Rostov Regional Court and the Gorno-Altai Regional Court to declare the Witnesses’ publications extremist, including the children’s book My Book of Bible Stories. On April 26, 2010, Roskomnadzor canceled the permission to distribute the magazines in Russia. On 6 October 2011 the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled in favor of the applicants, finding that the order was unlawful. However, on January 25, 2012, the Ninth Arbitration Court ruled that the use of mass media to promote extremism is prohibited by the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Mass Media” and the decision of Roskomnadzor was legalized. The believers filed a complaint with the ECtHR.
• Zinich and Others v. Russia, application 74387/13 (Zinich and Others v. Russia) . On March 20, 2012, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Sovetsky District of Krasnoyarsk received a complaint from an FSB officer about confiscating a copy of the book What Does the Bible Really Teach? from Jehovah’s Witnesses. The edition was published in Germany in 2009. Law enforcers concluded that it was identical in content to the earlier edition of 2005, which had already been recognized as extremist by the Rostov Regional Court. The FSB demanded that a case be opened to recognize the 2009 edition as extremist, and on February 14, 2013, by a court order, the book was included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. On May 20, 2013, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court dismissed the complaint of the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia against this decision. In this regard, a believer from Krasnoyarsk, Maria Zinich, as well as the German publishing house that published the publication, and the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia filed a complaint with the ECtHR.
• Verish and Others v. Russia, Complaint 79240/13 (Verish and Others v. Russia) . In June 2012, the FSB confiscated 13 publications from Krasnoyarsk Jehovah’s Witnesses, seeing signs of extremism in them. The prosecutor of the Sovetsky district of Krasnoyarsk appealed to the court, asking to recognize one of them as extremist. On January 24, 2013, the Sovetsky District Court granted this requirement. Aleksey Verish and 6 other believers were denied the right to file a complaint, as they were interested parties, and not direct participants in the process. The court also dismissed the appeal from the publisher, considering that the ownership of copyright was not proven. In July 2013, the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses managed to appeal the decision, but the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court, and then the cassation instance, upheld the initial verdict. On December 11, 2013, the believers applied to the ECtHR.
• Novikov and Others v. Russia, application 28108/14 (Novikov and Others v. Russia) . On November 2, 2011, the prosecutor applied to the Uspensky District Court of the Krasnodar Territory with a request to recognize the religious book of Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist. Psychological-linguistic examination did not find any signs of extremism in the book. However, at the request of the prosecutor, the publication was sent for re-examination to other experts, who saw signs of extremism in it. On June 19, 2013, the district court granted the prosecutor’s request and ordered the book to be confiscated. At the same time, he relied solely on the conclusions of the second expert opinion and the opinion of an Orthodox priest heard at the request of the prosecutor. The LRO of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Uspensky District, the German and American publishing houses of the literature of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as three believers Novikov, Bailo and Kalinin from the Krasnodar Territory and Nizhny Novgorod filed an appeal. On October 8, 2013, the Krasnodar Regional Court rejected it, and on April 4, 2014, the case was submitted to the ECtHR.
• Kravchuk and Others v. Russia, Complaint 2861/15 (Kravchuk and Others v. Russia) . In August 2013, the Central District Court of Tver declared the website of Jehovah’s Witnesses, jw.org, to be extremist. The owner of the site, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (New York), was not sued, which violated his rights. Having learned about the decision from the media, the believers made sure that the publications that became the reason for the lawsuit (for example, the book “What the Bible Really Teach”) were not available to site visitors from Russia. In January 2014, the Tver Regional Court overturned the lower court’s decision. However, on the appeal of the Deputy Prosecutor General, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the decision to block the site. ISPs across the country shut down access to the site, and it became a criminal offense to encourage users to use it in Russia. Russia is the only country in the world where jw.org is banned. In January 2015, the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, as well as Oleg Kravchuk and 9 other believers who read the site, filed a complaint with the ECtHR.
• “LRO of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Birobidzhan and Aliyev v. Russian Federation”, application 16578/15 (Birobidzhan LRO and Aliyev v. Russia) . In October 2013, the Leninsky District Court of Vladimir declared 2 publications of Jehovah’s Witnesses extremist without informing the representatives of the religious organization. A similar decision on one of these publications was made 2 months earlier by the Birobidzhan District Court of the Jewish Autonomous Okrug. Alam Aliyev and the LRO of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Birobidzhan successfully challenged it in the regional court. But a month later, in May 2014, the deputy prosecutor of Birobidzhan filed an official demand to stop the distribution of the brochure, referring to the verdict of the Vladimir court. The believers attempted to appeal because they were not notified of the decision and could not challenge it in a timely manner. The Leninsky District Court refused to restore the terms of the appeal. In October 2014, the Vladimir Regional Court upheld this decision. On April 7, 2015, a complaint was sent to the ECtHR.
• LRO of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Samara and Others v. Russian Federation, Complaint 15962/15 (Samara LRO and Others v. Russia) . In January 2014, under the guise of checking the power grid, the police raided a building rented by Jehovah’s Witnesses in Samara for worship. Returning without disguise, they went straight to the dressing room they had previously searched and “discovered” several books that were recognized as extremist. On March 7, 2014, the Sovetsky District Court fined the LRO 50,000 rubles for “storage” of these publications. The Samara Regional Court approved this decision, and then on May 29, 2014, recognized the LRO as an extremist organization and liquidated it. On November 12, 2014, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation briefly considered the appeal of believers and upheld the decision. Representatives of the LRO applied to the ECtHR on March 31, 2015.
• Trotsyuk and Others v. Russia, application 24622/16 (Trotsyuk and Others v. Russia) . In September 2009, the Rostov Regional Court recognized the LRO of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Taganrog as an extremist organization. In 2011, a criminal case was initiated against Nikolai Trotsyuk and later against 15 other local Jehovah’s Witnesses for organizing the activities of an extremist organization, involving in it and continuing the activities of the liquidated LRO. A written undertaking not to leave was taken from all the believers. Since 2013, the Taganrog City Court has considered this case twice (after the first guilty verdict, the appeal sent it for a new trial in a different composition of the court). As a result, all believers were found guilty. Four of them received 5.5 years probation and a fine of 100,000 rubles, the rest were fined from 70,000 to 200,000 rubles. In March 2016, the Rostov Regional Court canceled the imposed fines, approving the guilty verdict in the rest of it. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation also upheld this decision. This was the first case in modern Russia when people were subjected to criminal punishment only for their faith. On April 28, 2016, the believers filed a complaint with the ECtHR.
• Christensen v. Russia, Application 39417/17 (Christensen v. Russia) . On May 25, 2017, police and FSB officers searched the home of Danish citizen Dennis Christensen and his wife, Irina. He was detained and accused of continuing the activities of the LRO of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Orel (liquidated by the decision of the Oryol Regional Court of June 14, 2016). The next day, the Sovetsky District Court decided to place the believer in a pre-trial detention center. Considering this a violation of his freedom of religion, Christensen applied to the ECtHR on June 2, 2017. He also filed a complaint with the Oryol Regional Court, which on June 21, 2017 upheld the preventive measure without discussing the arguments of the defense. Dennis spent 731 days in jail. (See also Christensen v. Russia, no. 44386/19.)
• Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and Kalin v. Russian Federation, Complaint 10188/17 (Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and Kalin v. Russia) . On March 2, 2016, the Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation issued an official warning to the “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia” with a demand to stop “extremist” activities under the threat of liquidation. Based on the opinion that the Administration Center “systematically violated” the law on extremism by importing, storing and distributing prohibited literature, the Ministry of Justice applied to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation with a request to liquidate the Administration Center and 395 local religious organizations of Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout Russia, as well as to confiscate their property . On July 17, 2017, the Board of Appeals of the Supreme Court upheld the liquidation decision. On February 3, 2017, the Administrative Center and its representative Vasily Kalin applied to the ECtHR with a complaint about the violation by the Russian Federation of Art. 9, 11 and 14 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights in connection with the confiscation of property and the unjustified restriction of the right to freedom of religion.
• MRO Glazov and Others v. Russia, Complaint 3215/18 (Glazov LRO and Others v. Russia) . On January 15, 2018, 395 local religious organizations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia filed a complaint with the ECHR against the discriminatory decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated April 20, 2017. All organizations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the country were automatically declared extremist, liquidated, and their property confiscated. (See Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and Kalin v. Russian Federation.) The applicants also referred to the domestic courts’ failure to ensure their effective participation in the proceedings.

• Christensen v. Russia, Application 44386/19 (Christensen v. Russia) . Dennis Christensen, a Danish citizen, has lived in Russia since 1995. On the evening of May 25, 2017, armed FSB officers disrupted a worship service of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Orel. The believers were subjected to personal search and interrogation, which lasted 10 hours, until 5:30 am. Christensen was arrested and charged with continuing the activities of an extremist organization. After more than 50 hearings, the Zheleznodorozhny District Court found Christensen guilty and sentenced him to 6 years in prison. On February 18, 2019, the believer filed an appeal. He emphasized that he was discriminated against only for being a Jehovah’s Witness. On May 23, 2019, the Oryol Regional Court rejected Christensen’s arguments and upheld the lower court’s decision. However, the court was unable to explain how Dennis could coordinate the activities of the Jehovah’s Witnesses legal entity without being a member. The believer filed a complaint with the ECtHR on August 20, 2019. (See also Christensen v. Russia, no. 39417/17.)