{"id":2854,"date":"2017-04-11T19:08:31","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T19:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2017\/04\/11\/russia-tries-to-ban-jehovahs-witnesses-like-nazi-germany-did-before-wwii\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:30","slug":"russia-tries-to-ban-jehovahs-witnesses-like-nazi-germany-did-before-wwii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/russia-tries-to-ban-jehovahs-witnesses-like-nazi-germany-did-before-wwii\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia tries to ban Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, like Nazi Germany did before WWII"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ministry of Justice says Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses are \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcterrorists\u00e2\u20ac\u2122; Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Supreme Court to decide whether to outlaw the religion – yet again<\/h2>\n

Washington, D.C.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0United States Holocaust Memorial Museum<\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Website expresses deep concern over the Russian government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s treatment of\u00c2\u00a0Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses<\/span>. Underway since April 5, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0#Ministry Of Justice<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0is asking its Supreme Court to outlaw Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, allowing their arrest and imprisonment and the confiscation of their property used in worship. Holocaust Museum Director Sara Bloomfield does not equate Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s crimes against humanity to\u00c2\u00a0#Nazi Germany<\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, but she draws a clear parallel: What ended up as the shamefully heinous murder of at least 1,400 Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in prisons and concentration camps all began when the Nazi Party declared Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses a threat to Germany\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s security and viciously persecuted them.\u00c2\u00a0That<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0is what Russia is doing today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Heavy-handed history<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Mark Elliott, founding editor of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153East-West Church and Ministry Report,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Kentucky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Asbury University, says that in 1951-52 the\u00c2\u00a0Soviet Union<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0exiled some 7,000\u00c2\u00a0Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0to Central Asia and\u00c2\u00a0Siberia<\/span>. Picture the scene: You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re at home, asleep, and suddenly waken with a jolt. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2:00 a.m. Someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pounding on your door. Wide awake, your whole family watches armed officials push their way into your home and order you to pack\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyou have two hours. You throw a few possessions and clothing into a suitcase and are escorted to a waiting train, which transports you thousands of miles from home.<\/p>\n

State apologizes, then attacks<\/h2>\n

Decades later you and your family are allowed to return to your hometown. In the 1990s, you are exonerated as innocent victims of\u00c2\u00a0repression<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0and receive a certificate as an apology. Now, 20 years later, armed officials again invade and search your home, scaring you and your children out of your wits. Finding a children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bible storybook that you forgot to discard, the officials bark that you are in possession of extremist literature and take you to police headquarters. Police harshly interrogate you, accuse you of extremism, criminally book you and even lead you to jail. The government had added that storybook in 2009 to a list of prohibited \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d publications. A children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bible stories book with extremist content!<\/p>\n

Anti-extremist legislation misapplied<\/h2>\n

You now see just how flimsy those\u00c2\u00a0certificates of exoneration<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0are. You are again maligned as a danger to the nation and its citizens. This time you and your family are extremists, even\u00c2\u00a0terrorists<\/a>. Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0anti-extremist legislation<\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddrafted vaguely and imprecisely several years ago\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis being misapplied to your family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worship of God, which now supposedly is a criminal act.<\/p>\n

Church invasions<\/h2>\n

YouTube has many security-camera videos that\u00c2\u00a0catch Russian officials red-handed<\/span>, in the act of entering Kingdom Halls (Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 places of worship) in the deep of the night, holding \u00e2\u20ac\u0153banned\u00e2\u20ac\u009d publications like that Bible stories book. They plant them on the premises and leave. The next day armed, masked officials invade your Kingdom Hall, interrupt religious services, mistreat and threaten you and other congregation members, and search the premises. Lo and behold! They discover \u00e2\u20ac\u0153illegal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d publications\u00e2\u20ac\u201dBible-based books or brochures about how to live a clean, respectable life\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat supposedly violate legislation intended to\u00c2\u00a0prevent terrorism<\/span>. They find no bomb-making kits, no explosives, no weapons stockpile, no secret plans of attack \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Yet the officials confiscate the building, and the next week your place of worship is now a government-\u00e2\u20ac\u0153owned\u00e2\u20ac\u009d parking lot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Website tells all<\/h2>\n

Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 official Website (jw.org) contains much video proof, video testimonials of abused\u00c2\u00a0worshippers<\/span>, even interviews with non-Witness experts like Dr. Elliott, who decry what Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s government is doing to this religious group\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfooling no one. Moscow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0criminal case<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0against\u00c2\u00a0Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0resumes April 12.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/us.blastingnews.com\/world\/2017\/04\/russia-tries-to-ban-jehovahs-witnesses-like-nazi-germany-did-before-wwii-001618271.html\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ministry of Justice says Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses are \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcterrorists\u00e2\u20ac\u2122; Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Supreme Court to decide whether to outlaw the religion – yet again Washington, D.C.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0United States Holocaust Memorial Museum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Website expresses deep concern over the Russian…<\/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-2854","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\/2854","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=2854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5660,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2854\/revisions\/5660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}