WEBSITE OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN RUSSIA BLOCKED
SOVA Center for News and Analysis, 30 July 2018
In late July 2018, Roskomnadzor entered the website of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, jw-russia.org, into the Uniform Register of Forbidden Sites.
The decision on blocking this site and another ten pages of Jehovah's Witnesses (isa5417.соm, jw-library.ru, jw-ru.blogspot.ru, jwww.ru, mix-box.info, mt1016.com, mt1016.com/ru/wol/h/r2/lp-u-ru, mt2414.соm, mt2414.com/U_LOGIN1, vk.com/jw_ru) was issued by the Kuibyshev district court of Omsk on 19 March 2018.
According to the court's decision, access to pages of the Jehovah's Witnesses was restricted on the basis of part 1 of article 9 of the federal law "On information." The court considered that on these pages "is posted information devoted to the activity of a religious organization whose goals or actions are aimed at the conduct of extremist activity, with respect to which there is a court's decision regarding its liquidation that has taken legal effect," which "has a negative impact on the interests of society and the state and may entail manifestations that undermine the security of the state."
We recall that in May 2018, the Supreme Court of the Kabardino-Balkaria republic overruled the decision of the Prokhladny district court regarding blocking of four websites of the Jehovah's Witnesses, including jw-russia.org.
From our point of view, the decision to block the resources of the Jehovah's Witnesses is illegal, and also the bans of the literature of the Jehovah's Witnesses as extremist and the liquidation of their organizations for conducting extremist activity are illegal. We regard the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia as a manifestation of religious discrimination. (tr. by PDS, posted 1 August 2018)
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