{"id":2817,"date":"2016-11-19T18:31:15","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T18:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2016\/11\/19\/experts-decry-russias-threat-to-ban-the-new-world-translation-of-the-holy-scriptures\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:31","slug":"experts-decry-russias-threat-to-ban-the-new-world-translation-of-the-holy-scriptures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/experts-decry-russias-threat-to-ban-the-new-world-translation-of-the-holy-scriptures\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts Decry Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Threat to Ban the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is Part\u00c2\u00a02 of a three-part series based on<\/em><\/span>exclusive interviews<\/em><\/span><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0with noted scholars of religion, politics, and sociology, as well as experts in Soviet and post-Soviet studies.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRussian authorities are attempting to ban the\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>published by Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, labeling it as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremist.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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Dr.\u00c2\u00a0Ekaterina Elbakyan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ironically, if the court rules in favor of the prosecution, any ban placed on the\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>would \u00e2\u20ac\u0153violate the amendment to Article 3 of the Federal Law on Extremism signed by Mr.\u00c2\u00a0Putin in the fall of 2015,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d according to Dr.\u00c2\u00a0Ekaterina Elbakyan, professor of sociology and management of social processes at the Moscow Academy of Labor and Social Relations. The amendment to Article 3 clearly states: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Bible, the Quran, the Tanakh, and the Kangyur, their contents, and quotations from them cannot be recognized as extremist materials.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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Dr.\u00c2\u00a0Roman Lunkin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who would have imagined that adopting a law giving immunity to certain holy texts would provoke the banning of other holy texts?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d states Dr.\u00c2\u00a0Roman Lunkin, head of the Center for Religion and Society at the Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The first to suffer have been the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, along with their translation of the Bible.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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Dr.\u00c2\u00a0Jeffrey Haynes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Additionally, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153as an ICCPR [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] member state, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempt to ban such a Bible would be contravening freedom of religion conventions,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d notes Dr.\u00c2\u00a0Jeffrey Haynes, professor of politics and director of the Centre for the Study of Religion, Conflict and Cooperation at London Metropolitan University.<\/p>\n

The case against the\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>is being held at the Vyborg City Court, 138\u00c2\u00a0kilometers (85\u00c2\u00a0mi.) northwest of St.\u00c2\u00a0Petersburg. On April\u00c2\u00a026, 2016, the second day of preliminary hearings, the judge granted the prosecution\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s request to suspend the case, pending a court-appointed analysis of the\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation<\/em>. The Witnesses were not given a chance to present their defense, and the court assigned the analysis to be done by the Center for Sociocultural Expert Studies, whose negative conclusions about the\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>served as the basis for the prosecutor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s original claim. Assigning the center to analyze the\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>again violates the precedent set by Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Supreme Court to disqualify an expert if he has previously expressed his opinion about a subject being considered in court.<\/p>\n

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Dr.\u00c2\u00a0Gerhard Besier<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While the court-appointed analysis is pending, scholars have expressed their regard for the Witnesses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 translation. One such scholar, Dr.\u00c2\u00a0Gerhard Besier, director of the Sigmund Neumann Institute for the Research on Freedom and Democracy, comments: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation<\/em>has received high praise worldwide from Bible scholars representing diverse religious communities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Likewise, the Moscow-based SOVA Center for Information and Analysis stated in the February\u00c2\u00a02016 edition of their monthly news release\u00c2\u00a0Misuse of Anti-Extremism<\/em>: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find any signs of extremism in the\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation<\/em>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Since then, in almost every monthly news release, SOVA Center has repeated its definitive position against Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions, such as was published in June\u00c2\u00a02016: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We would like to reiterate that we view persecution against Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in Russia and bans against their literature and communities as religious discrimination.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

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Facts About the\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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For over a century, Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in Russia worshipped using a variety of Bible translations, including the Russian synodal and Makarios translations. In 1994, the Witnesses embarked on what would be a 12-year project to translate the Bible into contemporary Russian. In 2007, the complete\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>in Russian was released. Since then, over 4.8\u00c2\u00a0million copies in Russian have been produced. The\u00c2\u00a0New World Translation\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>is available, in whole or in part, in 137\u00c2\u00a0languages, with over 217\u00c2\u00a0million copies printed. The nearly 175,000 Witnesses in Russia use a variety of peaceful and societally responsible methods to offer Bibles to interested ones free of charge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Media Contacts:<\/em><\/p>\n

International: David\u00c2\u00a0A. Semonian, Office of Public Information, 1-718-560-5000<\/em><\/p>\n

Russia: Yaroslav Sivulskiy, 7-812-702-2691<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.jw.org\/en\/news\/releases\/by-region\/russia\/threat-to-ban-new-world-translation\/\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is Part\u00c2\u00a02 of a three-part series based onexclusive interviews\u00c2\u00a0with noted scholars of religion, politics, and sociology, as well as experts in Soviet and post-Soviet studies. ST. PETERSBURG, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRussian authorities are attempting to ban the\u00c2\u00a0New…<\/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-2817","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\/2817","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=2817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5680,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2817\/revisions\/5680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}