{"id":6587,"date":"2022-12-31T17:36:37","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T14:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/?p=6587"},"modified":"2022-12-31T17:36:37","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T14:36:37","slug":"russians-increasingly-cracking-down-on-jehovahs-witnesses-115-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/russians-increasingly-cracking-down-on-jehovahs-witnesses-115-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Russians increasingly cracking down on Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses; 115 in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia\u00a0kept cracking down on Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in 2022, the group said, sentencing 45 members of the movement to prison, a 40% increase over the 32 sentenced in 2021. A total of 115 Witnesses are in Russian prisons, the highest number since a 2017 Supreme Court of\u00a0Russia\u00a0decision that effectively banned the organization.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nineteen of those prisoners are over age 60, with 71-year-old Borid Andreev from Primorye territory the oldest. A disabled Jehovah\u2019s Witness, Andrey Vlasov, received a seven-year sentence, despite struggling \u201cto manage daily activities without assistance,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n

Police conducted searches of 200 homes of members in 39 Russian localities, the Witnesses reported. More than 1,800 residences have been searched in the past five years, with over 670 Witnesses facing charges or criminal investigations.<\/p>\n

The trials and imprisonment continue despite a June 7 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that ordered\u00a0Russia\u00a0to end its ban on Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, release all jailed group members and drop further prosecutions.<\/p>\n

The ECHR also ordered\u00a0Russia\u00a0to pay $67.3 million in damages for seized property and nonpecuniary damages.\u00a0Russia\u00a0quit the Council of Europe in March and severed its relationship with the European Convention on Human Rights in September.<\/p>\n

However, Council of Europe Secretary-General Marija Pejcinovic Buric on Dec. 9 wrote to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stating\u00a0Russia\u00a0\u201cremains under a binding international law obligation\u201d to implement the ECHR rulings.<\/p>\n

Russia\u00a0remains on the State Department\u2019s list of Countries of Particular Concern in part because of its treatment of the Witnesses.<\/p>\n

Other international observers have slammed the Russian attacks on the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia\u00a0is now marking a new milestone of disgrace,\u201d Rachel Denber, deputy director of Human Rights Watch\u2019s Europe and Central Asia Division, said in a statement. \u201cNo one should spend a second being prosecuted, let alone in prison, for the peaceful expression of their religious beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have noted the situation of the Witnesses in\u00a0Russia, with Commissioner Sharon Kleinbaum saying there is no possible justification for their imprisonment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year,\u00a0Russia\u00a0has continued its inexplicable and expanding persecution of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, with more Witnesses than ever behind bars and facing long prison sentences for the mere practice of their beliefs,\u201d Ms. Kleinbaum said. \u201cThe Russian government must end its practice of falsely labeling religious groups \u2018extremist\u2019 and permit freedom of religion or belief for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jehovah\u2019s Witness spokesman Jarrod Lopes said via email: \u201cRussia\u00a0is misemploying its anti-extremist legislation to ban, imprison and at times beat and torture Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses. It\u2019s hard to believe this poorly veiled crackdown has continued for over five years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia\u00a0kept cracking down on Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in 2022, the group said, sentencing 45 members of the movement to prison, a 40% increase over the 32 sentenced in 2021. A total of 115 Witnesses are in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6587","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\/6587","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=6587"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6590,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6587\/revisions\/6590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}