{"id":2859,"date":"2017-04-12T17:44:46","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T17:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2017\/04\/12\/is-religious-right-hero-vladimir-putin-about-to-ban-jehovahs-witnesses\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:34","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:34","slug":"is-religious-right-hero-vladimir-putin-about-to-ban-jehovahs-witnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/is-religious-right-hero-vladimir-putin-about-to-ban-jehovahs-witnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Religious Right Hero Vladimir Putin About To Ban Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next week, the Supreme Court of Russia will hear a case involving the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses that the church says could lead to its national headquarters near St. Petersburg being\u00c2\u00a0shut down<\/a>, along with 400 local organizations and more than 2,300 congregations. As RWW has reported, Vladimir Putin,\u00c2\u00a0revered by some Religious Right leaders<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0as\u00c2\u00a0a hero of Christian civilization<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0for his anti-gay and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pro-family\u00e2\u20ac\u009d policies,\u00c2\u00a0signed counter-terrorism legislation last year<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0that dramatically restricts the freedom of churches other than the Russian Orthodox Church.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

From a\u00c2\u00a0statement released earlier this month<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0by the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses:<\/p>\n

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On March\u00c2\u00a015, 2017, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ministry of Justice filed a claim with the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to label the Administrative Center of Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in Russia as extremist and liquidate it. The claim also seeks to ban the activities of the Administrative Center. If the Supreme Court upholds this claim, the Witnesses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 national headquarters near St.\u00c2\u00a0Petersburg will be shut down. Subsequently, some 400 registered Local Religious Organizations would be liquidated, outlawing the services of over 2,300 congregations of Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in Russia. The branch property, as well as\u00c2\u00a0places of worship<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0used by Witnesses throughout the country, could be seized by the State. Additionally, individual Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses would become subject to criminal prosecution for merely carrying out their worship activities. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the claim on April\u00c2\u00a05.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom\u00c2\u00a0condemned the anti-terrorism law<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0when Putin signed it:<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153These deeply flawed anti-terrorism measures will buttress the Russian government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s war against human rights and religious freedom,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said USCIRF Chair Thomas J. Reese, S.J. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They will make it easier for Russian authorities to repress religious communities, stifle peaceful dissent, and detain and imprison people. Neither these measures nor the currently existing anti-extremism law meet international human rights and religious freedom standards.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Even before the passage of that law, the Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity was used to\u00c2\u00a0label some religious minorities as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremist.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0The USCIRF had already identified restrictions on religious minorities as a growing problem in Russia.\u00c2\u00a0Among the key findings<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0in its 2016 annual report:<\/p>\n

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Along with other human rights abuses, violations of religious freedom in Russia escalated in the past year. There were numerous criminal convictions, fines, and detentions, particularly of Muslims and Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, under an extremism law that does not require proof of the use or advocacy of violence. The Constitutional Court ruled that material can be banned as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for proclaiming the truth or superiority of one religion or belief system. Other laws, including the recently-amended 1997 religion law and a growing number of harsh laws restricting civil society, limit the freedoms of religious groups and lead to abuses.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief Heiner Bielefeldt says in\u00c2\u00a0a video posted on the church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s website<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0that the vague charge of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d gives authorities \u00e2\u20ac\u0153carte blanche to prosecute anyone.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Are evangelicals rallying to defend Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses? Not exactly. A Christianity Today story reported that Russian Protestants view Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153competition for souls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153remain ambivalent<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0over whether to defend the rights of Witnesses as a fellow non-Orthodox faith.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More from reporter Kate Shellnutt:<\/p>\n

\n

Russian Protestants don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t consider themselves as extreme\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor as annoying\u00e2\u20ac\u201das the Witnesses, and they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t too eager to speak out against the recent case against them.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Baptists and Lutherans are often regarded as traditional religions by Russian judicial practice and by the Orthodox,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said William Yoder, spokesman for the Russia Evangelical Alliance. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Protestants do at times succumb to the temptation to accept the common Russian division between \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctraditional\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnon-traditional\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 religions if they themselves happen to be on the right side of the divide.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The story\u00c2\u00a0quotes Michael Cherenkov<\/a>, a field director for Mission Eurasia who is based in Ukraine, saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A ban on Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses is just the beginning in a series of repressions. Society needs an internal enemy to which the government can point in full cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Adds Cherenkov, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The silence of Protestants with regard to repressions against Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses will merely unleash a new wave of restrictions and repressions.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next week, the Supreme Court of Russia will hear a case involving the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses that the church says could lead to its national headquarters near St. Petersburg being\u00c2\u00a0shut down, along with 400 local organizations…<\/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-2859","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\/2859","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=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5753,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions\/5753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}