Jehovah's Witnesses trial
PROSECUTOR WOULD CLOSE WITNESSES; JEHOVAH'S WITNESS WOULD BE EXPELLED FROM MOSCOW
Kommersant Daily, 22 October 1998
The Golovin district court has begun a review of the case on the liquidation of the religious organization of "Jehovah's Witnesses" which is registered in Moscow and exists under this name in more than 230 countries. The "Witnesses" are charged with stirring up religious enmity, encouraging suicide and refusal of medical aid, and also compelling people to break up their families. Thus far the prosecutor's office has not succeeded in the attempt to hold the leadership of the society criminally responsible. Details by Ekaterina Zapodinskaia
The judicial persecution of the Jehovah's Witnesses began more than two years ago, when the Savelov district prosecutor instituted a case based on article 1431 of part 1 of the criminal code ("organization of associations that infringe upon the individual and human rights"). The investiation was begun upon the request of the so-called Committee for the Salvation of Youth, which included relatives of members of the given society. Three times it was dismissed for lack of evidence of a crime, but the decision was overruled by the Procuracy General and the procuracy of Moscow after complaints from members of the committee.
Each of the complaints contained information about incidents of young people who had joined the Jehovah's Witnesses society and had changed beyond recognition: they quit work and their previous interests, became withdrawn and alienated from their relatives, and for religious reasons rejected medical treatment for themselves and their children that involved blood transfusions or medicines that contained blood.
The nineteen-year-old Witness Pavel Semitko, who was hospitalized in 1996 in Moscow hospital number 40 with acute leukemia in critical condition and who had refused transfusion of his own blood, could be saved only by reaching an agreement with his mother for the transfusion by deception. He himself preferred "to die with God." Paul's mother gave testimony that members of the society came to Pavel's room in the hospital and "worked him over roughly" to persuade him not to have the transfusion. Pavel Semitko returned to his ordinary life and now the twenty-year-old son of Svetlana Ivanova, who appealed to the Committee for Salvation of Youth, has joined the sect and become, in her words, psychologically sick. He has lost interest in life and has withdrawn from the outside world. Ivanova described for the prosecutor that the society forbade her son to fellowship with people of another faith.
The grandson of Elena Riabinkina and his wife, who had become Witnesses, now do not acknowledge their relatives and friends nor general holidays. According to Riabinkina, "a great ideological transformation of personality takes place in the sect and the fear of the expectation of the end of the world is elevated. In sermons the sectarians are exhorted with the need to make voluntary contributions to the needs of the sect." The daughter of Tatiana Deriabina joined the same society, according to the mother's testimony, and she does not acknowledge general human standards and codes of conduct. In her eyes her mother has become and enemy. Deriabina's four-year-old grandson is taken by his mother to the meetings of the sect in order to be cured of his epilepsy. And the young mother Olga Lebedeva, who became a Witness, has tried by all means to kill her infant son. The judicial investigation has found her irresponsible. However, the prosecution has no proof that she became irrational as a result of fellowship with the Witnesses.
"Those who are not with us are with Satan"
The years-long investigation of the criminal case against the Jehovah's Witnesses has led to its abandonment. In the conclusion of her presentation, the investigator for specially important cases, Elena Solomatina, wrote that although the society has not committed any crimes, it has violated the constitution and the law "On freedom of conscience." The prosecutory of the norther districy Alexander Viktorov petitioned the courl to prohibit the activity of the society.
In the prosecutor's opinion, the Jehovah's Witnesses offend the sentiments of representatives of other confessions by calling in the literature all who do not profess their faith "goats" and Satan's adherents. He considers that the society promotes the destruction of the family in cases when one of the members of the family refuses to adopt the Witnesses' faith. As an example he cited the story of the youth Natalia Zhuravleva. On her person was found a declaration (which children of members of the society are required to carry) in which was written: "On the basis of our convictions, the family of Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions." Meanwhile her father Yury Zhuravlev categorically opposed the mother's involving the child in the activities of the society.
One of the basic arguments of the prosecutor against the Jehovah's Witnesses is the illegal attraction of children into the activity of this organization. According to its charter principles, only adults may become Witnesses. However in its book under the title "Conduct of services in organized manner," it says: "Baptized preachers who attend school may conduct services during vacations or when there are no classes because of secular holidays." According to informatin of the prosecutor, attraction of children into the organization is often carried out without the agreement of the second parent and any attempts to return the child to an ordinary life are viewed by the society as satanic interference.
However, Jehova'hs Witnesses deny all the prosecutor's accusations, considering them persecution of sincere believers (of which there are more than 50 thousand in Russia). The director of the Moscow office of the society, Sergei Vasiliev, noted in an interview with a reported that placing the interests of God higher than personal interests, as the Witnesses do, does not at all mean that one must quit work or family or hobbies: "We have not prohibitions. A person follows Holy Scripture and does what pleases God. It is not we but the Bible that does not permit divorce, personal life outside marriage, or smoking as things that corrupt the flesh and the spirit. Nevertheless the accusations against us are based, as a rule, on conflicts within families." To the reporter's question whether Witnesses really are preparing for the imminent end of the world, Sergei Vasiliev answered: "The Bible says nothing about the end of the world, but about the culmination of the evil system of things. We preach that God will intervene in human affairs, but we do not set a specific date."
At the next court session on the Jehovah's Witnesses case the department of justice of Moscow will participate, which registered the society at the end of 1993. As long as the trial is in progress, the Moscow authorities have refused to confirm for the society the right of owning a parcel of ground on which to is standing a House of Culture (Mikhalkov street, no. 26) which it bought from the Peter Alexeev Factory. The attempts of the prosecutor to contest in court the factory's right of ownership of the building and thereby to keep it from the Jehovah's Witnesses have ended in defeat. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 27 October 1998)