MEMORIAL RECOGNIZES 29 ADHERENTS OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES TO BE POLITICAL PRISONERS
The rights advocacy center Memorial recognized 29 followers of the Jehovah's Witnesses, which are banned in Russia as an extremist organization, to be political prisoners, the website of the rights advocacy center says.
According to information of the rights advocates, 23 adherents of the religious organization are, at the present moment, in custody and another six are under house arrest. With respect to another ten persons, measures of restriction not involving denial of liberty have been selected.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of Russia ruled the Jehovah's Witnesses to be extremist. About 100 items of the organization have been entered into the Federal List of Extremist Publications. Memorial considers the decision of the court to be without basis, inasmuch as adherents of Jehovah's Witnesses have never violated public order or displayed aggression and violence.
"The only action of Jehovah's Witnesses that has been declared by a court to be 'extremist' is their distribution of religious literature that had previously been prohibited by Russian courts. However these prohibitions are based entirely on the ascription to Jehovah's Witnesses that they incite religious strife and they denigrate other religions simply on the basis of their conviction of the truthfulness of their own faith," the rights advocacy center notes.
On 7 June, representatives of the Jehovah's Witnesses sent to the Council on Human Rights under the Russian president an open letter in connection with the detention of followers of their teaching. They consider that the prosecution of believers is illegal and that a "witch-hunt" is being conducted against them in the country. Subsequently the arrest of a married couple in Omsk on a charge of participating in the religious organization was made known. Technological equipment and other devices of information storage were confiscated from them. (tr. by PDS, posted 6 August 2018)
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