{"id":2877,"date":"2017-04-22T18:05:15","date_gmt":"2017-04-22T18:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2017\/04\/22\/british-government-alarmed-at-russian-ban-on-extremist-jehovahs-witnesses\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:29","slug":"british-government-alarmed-at-russian-ban-on-extremist-jehovahs-witnesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/british-government-alarmed-at-russian-ban-on-extremist-jehovahs-witnesses\/","title":{"rendered":"British Government ‘alarmed’ at Russian ban on ‘extremist’ Jehovah’s Witnesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Government says it is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153alarmed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by\u00c2\u00a0Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ban on Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and has launched an appeal for\u00c2\u00a0Vladimir Putin\u00c2\u00a0<\/a>to uphold religious freedom.<\/p>\n

Baroness Anelay said a ruling by the Russian Supreme Court \u00e2\u20ac\u0153effectively criminalises the peaceful worship of 175,000 Russian citizens” and contravenes\u00c2\u00a0rights enshrined in the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own constitution.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am alarmed by the decision of\u00c2\u00a0Russia<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Supreme Court to recognise the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses as \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcextremists\u00e2\u20ac\u2122,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Foreign Office minister\u00c2\u00a0added. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The UK calls on the Russian government to uphold its international commitment to freedom of religion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00c2\u00a0Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0plan to appeal Thursday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ruling, which came after six days of hearings attended by hundreds of supporters.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are greatly disappointed by this development and deeply concerned about how this will affect our religious activity,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said spokesman Yaroslav Sivulskiy. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We hope that our legal rights and protections as a peaceful religious group will be fully restored as soon as possible.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The case could be taken to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled a previous attempted ban on Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in Russia unlawful in 2010.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court was deciding on a claim lodged by the Russian ministry of justice to liquidate the group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s administrative centre near St Petersburg and 395 local organisations. Its decision will come into effect within 30 days unless an appeal is lodged, when it will be delayed until the resolution of the case.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Supreme Court has ruled to sustain the claim of Russia’s ministry of justice and deem the ‘Administrative Centre of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia’ organisation extremist, eliminate it and ban its activity in Russia,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said judge Yuri Ivanenko. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The property of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organisation is to be confiscated to the state revenue.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

A lawyer for the justice ministry, Svetlana Borisova, told the court adherents \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pose a threat to the rights of the citizens, public order and public security\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are known for door-to-door preaching and handing out literature, reject some of mainstream Christianity’s core beliefs and have more than 8.3 million members around the world.<\/p>\n

The US-based group has generated controversy for stances including its rejection of blood transfusions and opposition to military service, facing court proceedings in several countries.<\/p>\n

Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses first registered as a religious group in Russia in 1991 and registered again in 1999, but have been targeted repeatedly by authorities in a wide-ranging crackdown on religious freedom.<\/p>\n

Russia changed its legal definition of extremism in 2006, removing requirements for violence or hatred but stating the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153incitement of … religious discord\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as criteria, leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses with the\u00c2\u00a0same legal status as Isis or Nazis<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group’s international website was blocked in Russia two years ago over alleged extremism, with its Bibles banned the following year, while a local chairman was jailed for two years on charges of possessing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extremist literature\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in 2010.<\/p>\n

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was among the international bodies condemning a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153state sponsored campaign of harassment and mistreatment of Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it said dated back to the 1990s in Russia. It listed police searches, assaults, arson attacks, vandalism, seizures and raids on places of worship, as well as the arrest of several members and criminal investigations.<\/p>\n

The Russian Orthodox Church, which enjoys close ties with the Kremlin and the patronage of Mr Putin, is the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest religion, with followers representing around 41 per cent of the population.<\/p>\n

Other Christian denominations also make up a significant proportion, as do atheists, Muslims and spiritual movements including \u00e2\u20ac\u0153neopaganism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/russia-jehovahs-witnesses-ban-supreme-court-vladimir-putin-british-government-alarmed-criticism-a7696621.html\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The British Government says it is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153alarmed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by\u00c2\u00a0Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ban on Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses\u00c2\u00a0and has launched an appeal for\u00c2\u00a0Vladimir Putin\u00c2\u00a0to uphold religious freedom. Baroness Anelay said a ruling by the Russian Supreme Court \u00e2\u20ac\u0153effectively criminalises the peaceful…<\/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-2877","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\/2877","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=2877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5645,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions\/5645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}