{"id":2850,"date":"2017-04-08T10:27:59","date_gmt":"2017-04-08T10:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2017\/04\/08\/russia-jehovahs-witnesses-break-law-by-refusing-blood-transfusions\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:30","slug":"russia-jehovahs-witnesses-break-law-by-refusing-blood-transfusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/russia-jehovahs-witnesses-break-law-by-refusing-blood-transfusions\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia: Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses Break Law by Refusing Blood Transfusions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div>Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses break the law forbidding \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when its members refuse blood transfusions, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Justice Ministry said Thursday at a Supreme Court hearing on the question of banning the religious group in the country. The ministry added that if the organization is outlawed, its members could be prosecuted individually for extremism.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Justice Ministry last month suspended the organization\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s headquarters in St. Petersburg, alleging that its activities \u00e2\u20ac\u0153violate Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s law on combating extremism.&#8221; The country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Supreme Court Wednesday began hearing a case that could outlaw the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, which has 175,000 members and 395 branches across the country, as an extremist organization.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses believe the Bible prohibits the ingesting of blood and so refuse to allow blood transfusions or donations. At a session of the Supreme Court Thursday, a spokesperson for the Justice Ministry argued that the stance meant the organization violated the anti-extremism law that was passed following Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second war in Chechnya in 1999 and 2000 and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.<\/div>\n<div>\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/aFGNTHb.png\" border=\"0\" width=\"618\" height=\"586\" \/>\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Checks have found that the organization is in breach of the law on resistance to extremism,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, according to Russian news agency TASS. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In particular, the organization\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s religious literature forbids blood transfusion for its members in defiance of the doctors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 recommendation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The group had been warned in March 2016 that it could be banned if further evidence of alleged extremism was found in the following 12 months.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The religious organization Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses has been repeatedly warned by courts of law, but it has taken no required measures to eliminate the violations,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Justice Ministry spokeswoman said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>A representative for the ministry asserted that the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses promoted the idea of their exceptionalism and supremacy over other religions, which similarly violated anti-extremism legislation.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Supreme Court dismissed a counterclaimfrom the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses that its members were victims of repression.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses have strongly denied the accusations against it, arguing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremism is profoundly alien to the Bible-based beliefs and morality\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of members of the faith.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The federal United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)said Wednesday that the Justice Ministry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s move \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reflects the Russian government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tendency to view all independent religious activity as a threat to its control and the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s political stability.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/div>\n<div>\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>http:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/russia-jehovahs-witnesses-ban-case-580227<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses break the law forbidding \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when its members refuse blood transfusions, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Justice Ministry said Thursday at a Supreme Court hearing on the question of banning the religious group in the country. 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-2850","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\/2850","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=2850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5663,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions\/5663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}