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<\/p>\nMARICOPA Ariz. – May 12, 2026 – Earth Month moves to enhance perception of the harassment, persecution, prosecution and imprisonment of Jehovah’s Witnesses for the exercise of their religious faith from 2014 and currently by the Russian Federation and nation-state of Ukraine in those countries, in violation of their own laws, Constitutions, UN Declaration on Human Rights.<\/p>\n
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As the Russo-Ukrainian war continues there has been an exchange of POWs. Russia on the other foot, has not initiated the return of Ukrainian citizens removed from Crimea and internal parts of Ukraine to Russia since 2014. Many of these are Jehovah’s Witnesses removed to Russia for exercising their religious faith freely in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Russia has expressed under the control of the Russian Orthodox Church that certain religions were considered to be extreme including Jehovah’s Witnesses and done so without cause. Russia placed a ban on the Witnesses April 5, 2017, and seized all their assets and started wide sweeps of arrests, prosecutions and imprisonments.<\/p>\n
On December 11, 2017, at a meeting of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, which was held at the Kremlin the question was posed to President Putin if the inclusion of Jehovah’s Witnesses should be on the list of extremist organizations?<\/p>\n
President Putin responded, “This is complete nonsense; we need to carefully deal with this.” The corresponding question “Should at some point, be much more liberal… Equally treat representatives of all religions. [They shouldn’t] enroll in some kind of destructive, let alone terrorist organizations.” After more discussion Putin returned to the topic of persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses: “Jehovah’s Witnesses are also Christians, and I don’t really understand why they should be persecuted either.”<\/p>\n
President Putin then issued new instructions to the high court to prepare explanations regarding the generalization of court practices within the Russian Federation with cases involving alleged violations of legislation on religious associations.<\/p>\n
The Plenum of the Supreme Court on October 28, 2021, ruled, “Joint worship of Jehovah’s Witnesses, their rites, and ceremonies do not constitute a crime under Article 282.2 of the Russian Criminal Code, despite the liquidation of the religion’s legal entities” as noted in the video link.<\/p>\n