{"id":2789,"date":"2016-04-08T12:10:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T12:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2016\/04\/08\/russian-authorities-move-toward-unprecedented-shutdown-of-witnesses-national-headquarters\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:31","slug":"russian-authorities-move-toward-unprecedented-shutdown-of-witnesses-national-headquarters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/russian-authorities-move-toward-unprecedented-shutdown-of-witnesses-national-headquarters\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Authorities Move Toward Unprecedented Shutdown of Witnesses\u2019 National Headquarters"},"content":{"rendered":"
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia\u2014In an unprecedented move, Russian authorities have threatened to close the Administrative Center of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Russia.<\/div>\n
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The Prosecutor General\u2019s Office of the Russian Federation issued a formal warning letter dated March 2, 2016, stating that \u201cthe religious association shall be subject to liquidation\u201d if the administrative center fails to eliminate within two months the \u201ccommitted violations\u201d framed by the government as \u201cextremist.\u201d Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Russia, states: \u201cThis closing of our national entity would include a confiscation of any properties we own and ultimately place a ban on the religious activities of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses throughout Russia.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Ironically, the move comes during the 25th anniversary of the first legal registration of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Russia: the Administrative Center was registered on March 27, 1991, and was reregistered on April 29, 1999. The threat to close the Witnesses\u2019 national headquarters in Russia, located in the village of Solnechnoye about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of St. Petersburg, is the latest instance of the government\u2019s aggression against the Witnesses. Within the past year, Russian authorities blocked imports of the Witnesses\u2019 religious literature, as well as Russian-language Bibles, and made Russia the only nation in the world to ban the Witnesses\u2019 official website, jw.org. \u201cThe anti-extremism laws are being misapplied toward the worship of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Russia,\u201d comments Mr. Sivulskiy. \u201cJehovah\u2019s Witnesses are contesting these decisions. We want to freely carry out our worship and our Bible education work peacefully, as we have been doing for 125 years in Russia.\u201d<\/div>\n
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However, Russian authorities have been increasingly hostile to Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses largely due to what has been described as the government\u2019s symbiotic relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church. International media outlets have reported that this \u201cclose alliance between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church,\u201d as The New York Times characterized it, appears to fuel aggressive acts and legislation aimed at suppressing the Witnesses\u2019 activities as well as those of other religious minorities in Russia. The Associated Press reported that the government\u2019s \u201cmoves against the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Russia [have] also alarmed religious-freedoms activists.\u201d A report from Reuters stated that such acts are being carried out \u201cagainst Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and scores of others caught up in the widening net of criminal prosecutions brought under Russia\u2019s anti-extremism law.\u201d In December 2015, The Independent reported that Russia\u2019s legislation was to help \u201cprevent terrorist attacks and ultranationalist violence.\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Yet, it has also been used \u201cto prosecute members of such peaceful faiths\u201d as Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, as described by The Huffington Post on March 20, 2016. Although the Witnesses are seeking legal redress in both domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights, The Moscow Times of March 25, 2016, reported that Russia passed a new law \u201cgiving Russian courts the right to overrule international courts\u2019 decisions.\u201d<\/div>\n
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The Witnesses use the Administrative Center of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Russia to organize and support free Bible education programs for Russian citizens. Experienced ministers at the administrative center also assist and communicate with Witness volunteers in Russia working to provide relief aid for victims of disasters. There are more than 175,000 Witnesses in Russia, a country with a population of over 146,000,000.<\/div>\n
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David A. Semonian, international spokesman for the Witnesses at their world headquarters in New York, states: \u201cIt is greatly disappointing to us that the government would even threaten to shut down our branch office in Russia. Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and many others around the world are taking a keen interest in how this matter develops.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Media Contacts:<\/div>\n
International: David A. Semonian, Office of Public Information, tel. +1 718 560 5000<\/div>\n
Russia: Yaroslav Sivulskiy, tel. +7 812 702 2691<\/div>\n
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source\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n
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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia\u2014In an unprecedented move, Russian authorities have threatened to close the Administrative Center of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Russia. The Prosecutor General\u2019s Office of the Russian Federation issued a formal warning letter dated March…<\/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-2789","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\/2789","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=2789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5690,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2789\/revisions\/5690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}