{"id":6294,"date":"2022-05-25T21:10:08","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T18:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=6294"},"modified":"2022-12-19T21:33:51","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T18:33:51","slug":"released-from-russia-jehovahs-witness-returns-to-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/released-from-russia-jehovahs-witness-returns-to-denmark\/","title":{"rendered":"Released from Russia, Jehovah’s Witness returns to Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Danish Jehovah\u2019s Witness has returned to Denmark after spending five years in a Russian prison under Moscow\u2019s crackdown on the religious group<\/div>\n
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Dennis Christensen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – A Danish Jehovah’s Witness on Wednesday has returned to Denmark after spending five years in a Russian prison under Moscow’s crackdown on the religious group, the organization said.<\/p>\n

Russia officially banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017, and designated the religious denomination \u201can extremist organization\u201d in connection to its alleged \u201cpropaganda of exclusivity.\u201d Dennis Christensen, a 49-year-old Dane, was arrested that year for leading a prayer meeting, and was handed a six-year prison sentence in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cJehovah’s Witnesses around the world couldn’t be happier for Dennis and his wife, Irina,” Jarrod Lopes, a spokesman for the organization said in a statement. \u201cHowever, Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to be arrested, imprisoned, and sometimes tortured simply for the peaceful practice of their Christian faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

“We hope soon Russian authorities will halt the discriminatory attack on Jehovah’s Witnesses and allow them to worship freely as they do in over 200 other lands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christensen was held at a penal colony in the western Kursk region. The group had previously claimed that he was denied medical treatment and was harassed by prison authorities.<\/p>\n

In June 2020, the Lgov district court paroled Christensen after he served half of his sentence, and replaced the remaining three years with a fine of 50,000 rubles ($5,250). However, that ruling was overturned by the Kursk Regional Court after local prosecutors appealed the parole, insisting that Christensen had violated prison rules.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Danish Jehovah\u2019s Witness has returned to Denmark after spending five years in a Russian prison under Moscow\u2019s crackdown on the religious group COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – A Danish Jehovah’s Witness on Wednesday has returned…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6294","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\/6294","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=6294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6296,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6294\/revisions\/6296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}