![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/imgs-4.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRussia must \u201cimmediately cease\u201d persecution of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, a State Department spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The statement is a response to news that Russian agents had arrested five more Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses for their faith days after the United States condemned Russian persecution of religious groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Russian government\u2019s persecution of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses has been marked by mass raids, arrests, detentions, and harsh prison sentences, and by numerous credible allegations of torture,\u201d the spokesman told the DCNF. \u201cThe United States condemns Russia\u2019s continued crackdown on Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and other religious minorities in the strongest possible terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States calls on Russia to immediately cease its persecution of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and other religious minorities under the guise of purported \u2018extremism\u2019 and release all prisoners of conscience,\u201d the spokesman continued. \u201cAll people should be entitled to exercise their right to freedom of religion or belief, without fear of reprisal or government interference.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Russian court in Krasnoyarsk sentenced Andrey Stupnikov, 47, to prison for six years, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses spokesman Jarrod A. Lopes said in a press release. Stupnikov had spent almost eight months in pretrial detention and four months under house arrest during the investigation and trial, the press release said.<\/p>\n
A court in Kursk also imprisoned four other members of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, Lopes announced. Andrey Andreyev was sentenced to four and a half years and Andrey Ryshkov was sentenced to three years. Artem Bagratyan was sentenced to two and a half years and his wife Alevtina Bagratyan was sentenced to two years.<\/p>\n
In Russia and Crimea, there have been 227 criminal cases involving 492 Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, Lopes said in the press release. Fifty-seven of these Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses have been imprisoned, 33 are under house arrest, and 1,456 homes of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses have been raided since 2017, the press release said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussian authorities are targeting Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses based on tragically poor intel,\u201d Lopes said in a statement Thursday. \u201cThe authorities\u2019 mistaken views are obvious not only by their testimonies in court but also by the manner in which they raid the Witnesses\u2019 homes. FSB and local police typically arrive by the van-load in full combat gear\u2014helmets, bullet proof vests, and automatic weapons\u2014merely to arrest peaceful family men and women, including frail elderly believers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNumerous international human rights actors have decried Russia\u2019s baseless assault on Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses,\u201d Lopes added. \u201cWe hope the Russian authorities will soon come to know what most of the world knows about Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses: they are societally responsible Christians who want nothing more than to have the freedom to worship in Russia as they do in over 200 other lands.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia must \u201cimmediately cease\u201d persecution of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, a State Department spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday evening. The statement is a response to news that Russian agents had arrested five more Jehovah\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476","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=5476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5478,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions\/5478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}