Update on Russian ban

by raymond frantz 12 Replies latest social current

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  raymond frantz

  https://www.jwupdates.com/post/four-jehovah-s-witnesses-sentenced-to-seven-years-each-in-russia

  The following is an update in relation to the Russian ban on Jehovah's Witnesses as it appeared on Reuters on the 30th January

  Jan 30 (Reuters) - A Russian court has sentenced four Jehovah's Witnesses to seven years each in prison after finding them guilty of coordinating extremist activities, according to a spokesman for the religious group.

  Russia's Supreme Court designated Jehovah's Witnesses as "extremist" in 2017, liquidating and banning the group's nearly 400 chapters across the country. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2022 that the ban was illegal.

  Since then raids, interrogations and jailings of adherents have occurred with some regularity in Russia, which counted roughly 175,000 active believers at the time of the ban, according to the group's Russian website.

  "Russia continues to shamelessly misemploy its anti-extremist legislation to ban, imprison, and at times beat and torture Jehovah's Witnesses," the spokesman, Jarrod Lopes, told Reuters by email.

  Russian officials have previously denied

  allegations of mistreatment or torture of Jehovah's Witnesses.

  Some 790 members of the group have been criminally charged or are under investigation for their faith, with 147 sentenced last year, Lopes said.

  "Russia's legal system has become a cathedral of what it hates - extremism," he said.

  Religious life in Russia is dominated by the Orthodox Church, which is championed by President Vladimir Putin. Some Orthodox scholars view Jehovah's Witnesses as a "totalitarian sect."

  Last week, a six-month trial against four men in the southwestern Russian city of Samara concluded with guilty verdicts and seven-year sentences for each.

  The men, Aram Danielyan, Denis Kuzyanin, Sergei Polosenko and Nikolai Vasilyev, were charged based on hidden recordings of worship services and personal conversations about their faith, as well as electronic evidence which Lopes said was planted in a computer belonging to a defendant by an "FSB technical specialist" during a search.

  Separately, a woman in the nearby city of Tolyatti was given two years' forced labour for the same crime on Jan. 25, the same day as the four men were sentenced, according to the group's Russian website.

  https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/four-jehovahs-witnesses-sentenced-seven-years-each-russia-2024-01-30/
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  Obrien

  This seems a religion vs religion situation, the Orthodox Church feeling threatened. Banning rarely works as it just makes martyrs of the attacked party. The ultimate goal in society should be to remove religious extremism through education.
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  Phizzy

  It is an interesting situation though, because under the Russian Law proscribing Extremist Groups, the J.W. Org. ticks all the boxes !

  So no appeal will work, and the Org. will not take it to a Court like the E.C.H.R, because they would lose, mind you, they have been silly enough to do that sort of thing before.

  Crying "Religious Persecution" and "Human Rights" will not wash, no Group has the Right to ignore other Human Rights, such as Freedom of Conscience, and Freedom of Religion, the Right to Family Life etc. Human Rights always come way above Religious Belief and Practice in Law.

  Claiming it is their Religious Right to Shun because it is "based on their view of the Bible" has no more strength in Law than something based upon the Quran.
• 

  menrov

  whether one agrees or disagrees with the Russian ban, but it is in my view not smart nor scripturally correct to continue you religious activities. Jesus left a town where he was not welcome. Oh, true, the WT is superior to Jesus.
• 

  skin

  Jesus left a town where he was not welcome
  

  Any chance you know where in the Bible that is found?
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  raymond frantz

  after finding them guilty of coordinating extremist activities, according to a spokesman for the religious group.
  

  Looks like they were not just rank and file they were organising meeting
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  Mikejw

  It looks like compulsory military service will be coming to more countries soon
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  Varuaino

  skin: Any chance you know where in the Bible that is found?

  It's recorded in Luke 9:51-56 (ESV):

  "When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village."

  Additionally, in Luke 9:5, Jesus instructed his disciples:

  “If anyone does not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that town, as a testimony against them”
  

  This act symbolized moving on from places where the message was rejected
• 

  Jeffro

  Obrien:

  This seems a religion vs religion situation, the Orthodox Church feeling threatened.

  It is more about not wanting American sects in Russia. Though they probably also wouldn’t like groups that say Russia is a ’beast’ from Daniel and Revelation.

  But bans just feed into JWs’ persecution complex.
• 

  Sea Breeze

  The Russian constitution declares "the state is secular and guarantees freedom of religion, equal rights irrespective of religious belief, and the right to worship and profess one’s religion. The law states government officials may prohibit the activity of a religious association for violating public order or engaging in “extremist activity. Russian law identifies Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as the country’s four “traditional” religions and recognizes the special role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC).

  Groups designated “extremist,” “include Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Tablighi Jamaat, followers of Turkish Muslim theologian Said Nursi, the Church of Scientology, Falun Gong"....

  There are millions of Catholic and Baptist believers in Russia that are not labelled "extremist".

  While I'm quite sure that Russian abuses have been made in determinng who is, and who is not extremist, who can deny that other more "civilized" countries have shirked their God ordained responsibility to "bear the sword" and by default enable religious abuses for those trapped in the Watchtower system of things?

  When I started attending a different church, my parents never spoke to me again, refused to see their two precioius grandsons when they were born and refused to notify me if a beloved family member got sick etc. Everyone knows that if you attend a different chuch after being a JW, you are viewed as being in league with Satan. My father and brothers, all serving as elders and Ministerial servants refused to even call me when my beoved mother went to hospice. I found out on the internet that my mom died.... two weeks later.
  
  When I found out, I called my dad and told him I was coming over. If he didn't let me in, I was prepared to call the news media and the police and to picket his home in the neighborhood until he did. I got in and found almost any trace of her swept clean. Most of the her belongings and familiar items that would remind someone of her had all been given out to the many JW relatives and friends. I couldn't find anything that would remind me of her. Other people had taken them all away..... except for one item. I remember my mom using this pin cushion when growing up when a garmet tore and needed mending.... a cheap made-in-China pin cushion. I was grateful to get that, but would rather have had family pictures, or something that she valued. Mom probably never thought twice about that pin cushion. It is one of my most prized posessions today.
  
  

  
  

  How can governments who supposedly guarantee the freedom of religion in their constitution, allow a totalitarian "religion" to exist in their borders that makes it all but impossible to have freedom of religion?

  But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. - Romans 13: 4

  Until JW's allow others the same rights that they demand of others, they can all rot in prison as far as I'm concerned.