Russia’s justice ministry has called for a ban on the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian movement that zealously seeks converts and rejects military service.<\/p>\n
The ministry has asked Russia’s supreme court to close the group’s headquarters and stop its 175,000 Russian members sharing “extremist” literature.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the group called the proposed ban “persecuting worshippers just for manifesting their faith”.<\/p>\n
Some Russian regions have already shut down branches of Jehovah’s Witnesses.<\/p>\n
According to the justice ministry, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ activities “violate Russia’s law on combating extremism”.<\/p>\n
The authorities object to pamphlets deemed to incite hatred against other religious groups, mainly for proclaiming Jehovah’s Witnesses as followers of the only “true” faith.<\/p>\n
One quotes the novelist Leo Tolstoy, describing the doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church as superstition and sorcery, the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford reports from Moscow.<\/p>\n
The group was registered in Russia in 1991.<\/p>\n
Thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses were deported to Siberia during Joseph Stalin’s 30-year reign of terror. Other Christian groups were also persecuted at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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