{"id":1555,"date":"2013-04-08T21:21:30","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T21:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2013\/04\/08\/jehovahs-witnesses-in-southern-russia-face-new-charges\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:31","slug":"jehovahs-witnesses-in-southern-russia-face-new-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/jehovahs-witnesses-in-southern-russia-face-new-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses in Southern Russia Face New Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">ROSTOV-ON-DON, April 8 (RIA Novosti) \u2013 Prosecutors in the southern Russian city of Taganrog have charged 16 Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses with taking part in the activities of an extremist organization after they allegedly resurrected the banned local branch of the international religious organization.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">According to investigators, the religious group\u2019s followers continued to hold regular meetings after their local branch was banned in the city in 2009. At the meetings, they allegedly incited hatred against other religions, circulated extremist literature and called for military draft dodging.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">The suspects also attempted to involve children in their activities and collected money for the organization, the prosecutors said in a statement.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cThe case materials will be sent to the Taganrog city court after the suspects are informed of the charges,\u201d the statement said.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">The Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses organization, which has more than seven million followers worldwide, including over 130,000 in Russia, has been banned in a number of Russian regions and in some former Soviet republics over its religious beliefs.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">The Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses branch in the Russian capital was dissolved by a district court ruling in 2004, but the European Court of Human Rights declared the decision illegal in 2010.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">http:\/\/en.ria.ru\/russia\/20130408\/180515407.html<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 ROSTOV-ON-DON, April 8 (RIA Novosti) \u2013 Prosecutors in the southern Russian city of Taganrog have charged 16 Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses with taking part in the activities of an extremist organization after they allegedly resurrected the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-news","category-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5701,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions\/5701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}