{"id":2892,"date":"2017-05-02T15:43:02","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T15:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2017\/05\/02\/did-trump-warn-russia-over-jehovahs-witnesses-ban-and-urge-members-to-seek-asylum-in-the-us\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T10:25:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T07:25:29","slug":"did-trump-warn-russia-over-jehovahs-witnesses-ban-and-urge-members-to-seek-asylum-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/did-trump-warn-russia-over-jehovahs-witnesses-ban-and-urge-members-to-seek-asylum-in-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Trump Warn Russia Over Jehovah’s Witnesses Ban and Urge Members to Seek Asylum in the U.S.?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLAIM<\/span><\/h3>\n

President Trump offered asylum to Russian Jehovah’s Witnesses.<\/p>\n

RATING<\/span><\/h3>\n
\u00c2\u00a0FALSE<\/span><\/div>\n

ORIGIN<\/span><\/h3>\n

Shortly after a Russian court labeled Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses as an\u00c2\u00a0extremist<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0group in April 2017, a series of fake news articles were published claiming that President Trump had offered asylum to those fleeing the country.<\/p>\n

One article published by the web site\u00c2\u00a0USA News<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0claimed that Trump had sent a strong warning to Russia about the ban:<\/p>\n

\n

President Donald Trump has sent a strong message to the Russia Federation over the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ban on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153peaceful activities\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses.<\/p>\n

Trump warns Russia to reverse its decision immediately else he would use the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own constitution against them.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You know right that this is contrary to the constitution of the land of the Russia Federation. I request you to reverse the decision immediately before I use your own constitution against you\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Trump warned.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Another web site,\u00c2\u00a0USA Television<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0was\u00c2\u00a0published<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0a similar story,\u00c2\u00a0along with a photograph purportedly showing Trump consoling a group of Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses at Kingdom Hall:<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and their wives attended Thursday evening meeting of Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in Washington D.C.<\/p>\n

The surprise appearance of the first families of the US drove many others to the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses.<\/p>\n

Though their visit was unannounced, ushers, preferably called \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcattendants\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 by the religious organization received the Trump, Pence and wives and offered them front row seats.<\/p>\n

Trump was seen shaking hands with almost the entire congregation after the service and also picked copies of the groups publications \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWatchtower\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAwake!\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Similar stories were also published by\u00c2\u00a0Houston News<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and a second\u00c2\u00a0USA News<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0web site. None of these web sites carried a readily available disclaimer, but there were plenty of signs indicating that these articles, and their sources, were not trustworthy.<\/p>\n

For one, the photograph purportedly showing Trump and Pence praying with Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses at Kingdom Hall in April 2017 was actually taken at the\u00c2\u00a0National Prayer Service<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0following Trump\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inauguration in January 2017.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, all four of the web sites use misleading web site names and URLs in an apparent attempt to trick readers into thinking that they were visiting a legitimate news source.\u00c2\u00a0For instance, the first USA News web site uses\u00c2\u00a0the domain fox-news24.com. However, this\u00c2\u00a0web site is not affiliated with the real Fox News. USA Television also uses a suspicious URL: ab.cnewsgo.com. Again, this web site is not affiliated with ABC News (whose URL is abcnews.go.com), or the real USA television network.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The URLs for Houston News and the second USA News web site are\u00c2\u00a0similarly deceptive. Houston News uses the domain Houstonchronicle-tv.com, though is not affiliated with the real\u00c2\u00a0Houston Chronicle,\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>and the second USA News web site also had a name unrelated to its domain: states-tv.com.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to the dubious nature of the sources peddling this rumor, we found no record of Trump offering\u00c2\u00a0asylum to Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in any genuine news publication. Acting State Department spokesman Mark C. Toner did\u00c2\u00a0condemn<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ban on Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses in an email to\u00c2\u00a0US News & World Report,\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>but this statement did not include the aforementioned quote from Trump:<\/p>\n

\n

The United States is extremely concerned by the Russian government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions targeting and repressing members of religious minorities, including Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses, under the pretense of combating extremism.<\/p>\n

[\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6]<\/p>\n

We call on the Russian authorities to ensure that Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legislation is not misused to target members of peaceful religious minorities, including the Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses. The prosecution of peaceful religious minority groups for \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcextremism\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 creates a climate of fear which itself undermines efforts to combat the threat of radicalization.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true that Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses were labeled an extremist group in Russia. However, the rumors circulating that President Trump had issued a stern warning against Russia and that he offered asylum to Russian Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses\u00c2\u00a0originated on one of several disreputable web sites.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/jehovahs-witness-russia-trump-asylum<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLAIM President Trump offered asylum to Russian Jehovah’s Witnesses. RATING \u00c2\u00a0FALSE ORIGIN Shortly after a Russian court labeled Jehovah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Witnesses as an\u00c2\u00a0extremist\u00c2\u00a0group in April 2017, a series of fake news articles were published claiming that…<\/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-2892","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\/2892","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=2892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5635,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2892\/revisions\/5635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}