{"id":2879,"date":"2017-04-24T20:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T17:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2017\/04\/24\/moscow-court-dismisses-lawsuit-filed-by-jehovahs-witnesses-over-suspension-of-activities\/"},"modified":"2022-12-19T21:36:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T18:36:59","slug":"moscow-court-dismisses-lawsuit-filed-by-jehovahs-witnesses-over-suspension-of-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/moscow-court-dismisses-lawsuit-filed-by-jehovahs-witnesses-over-suspension-of-activities\/","title":{"rendered":"Moscow court dismisses lawsuit filed by Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses over suspension of activities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\"><strong style=\"font-stretch: normal; line-height: 20px\">MOSCOW, April 24 (RAPSI) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses against Russian Justice Ministry over suspension of the organization\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s activities in Russia, RAPSI reported from the courtroom on Monday.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">On March 15, the Justice Ministry has suspended activities of the Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses until the Supreme Court\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s review of a petition filed by authorities asking to declare religious organization extremist. On April 20, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Supreme Court banned the Administrative Centre of Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses as extremist organization. The Centre and all its 395 branches are to be liquidated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses claim that such actions as the Ministry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lawsuit over liquidation are perpetrated to limit religious freedoms and that 175,000 followers of the organization will be affected.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">According to the Justice Ministry, violations of the law \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On Combatting Extremism\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were revealed during inspection conducted in the organization. The Prosecutor General\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Office\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notice concerning inadmissibility of carrying out extremist activities by Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses has taken effect, the Ministry said. Since 2009, 95 materials distributed by the organization in Russia have been declared extremist and 8 Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 branches have been liquidated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/sK1yN8v.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"360\" height=\"203\" \/>\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses organization has had many legal problems in Russia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">On January 25, chairman of the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses branch in the town of Dzerzhinsk was fined 4,000 rubles ($67) for keeping and distributing extremist literature banned in Russia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">On October 12, 2015, a court in the Jewish Autonomous Region ruled to ban a branch of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in Birobidzhan because of distributing extremist literature by the organization.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">On June 16, 2015, Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Supreme Court declared \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses of Stary Oskol\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the Belgorod Region an extremist organization and ruled to liquidate it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">On June 9, 2015, the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses of Belgorod was banned as extremist organization.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">In March 2015, a court in Tyumen fined the organization 50,000 rubles ($792) and seized prohibited literature.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">In January 2014, a court in Kurgan ruled to ban the organization\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s booklets as extremist. The books talk about how to have a happy life, what you can hope for, how to develop good relations with God and what you should know about God and its meaning.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">In late December 2013, the leader of the organization\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s group in Tobolsk, Siberia was charged with extremism and the prevention of a blood transfusion that nearly led to the death of a female member of the group.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">In 2004, a court in Moscow dissolved and banned a Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses group on charges of recruiting children, encouraging believers to break from their families, inciting suicide and preventing believers from accepting medical assistance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses is an international religious organization based in Brooklyn, New York. Since 2004 several branches and chapters of the organization were banned and shut down in various regions of Russia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-stretch: normal; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; font-family: Times; color: #000000; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px\">http:\/\/www.rapsinews.com\/judicial_news\/20170424\/278366082.html\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MOSCOW, April 24 (RAPSI) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00c2\u00a0The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses against Russian Justice Ministry over suspension of the organization\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s activities in Russia, RAPSI reported from the courtroom&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2879","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\/2879","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=2879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5747,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions\/5747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}