Hecce: Most likely the State will have neighborhood watchers checking any JW suspicious activity.
Absolutely that will happen. Without question.
Four days after the Russian JWs were banned, for being an 'extremist' organization, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Murmansk region held the finals for a role-playing game competition for young people in Russia. The games were called "Anti-Terror 2017" and were held on April 24.
From the Russian website https://51.xn--b1aew.xn--p1ai/news/item/10091895/ :
"Goal of the game - with the help of simulated situations to teach young people how to act in cases of threat of terrorist attack and to identify extremist propaganda facts."
This is what the anti-terror games consisted of:
"Games organizers have offered the teams take five simulated situations under the code name. For example, during the "Underground" Students got into the hall, the walls of which the image of an extremist nature were placed, that it was necessary to select from dozens of other images and to inform the supervisor. On stage, "the student audience," the students were looking for "explosive device" and properly operated when it is detected, during the "Library" - looking of the seven proposed texts, the "forgotten" by someone in the student library, extremist statements and texts. Step "House" made of students carefully study the content on the pages of friends in social networks in order to find the banned information. The most difficult for all the teams proved to stage "Railway Station", where the waiting room was a "suicide bomber" among the passengers. Only members of the "Razumovsky name squad" command from the mage correctly identified conventional terrorists and in accordance with safety regulations act when it is detected. Rest of the game confused look and feel normal "passengers", including their nationality.
The highlight of "AntiTerror-2017" were performances of employees of the department of special purpose Russian Federal Penitentiary Service of the Murmansk region "Iceberg". Special forces soldiers "liberated" the hostages, whose role is performed by the police, and successfully stopped the riots to "a football match." Students carefully observe the actions of the police and special forces. According to the organizers of the game, performances should teach children to act correctly in the event of these situations in real life.
And THAT is what is happening in the rest of Russia - they are training their young people to be vigilant in spotting potential terrorists (which places the JWs' behavior, regardless of their motives, into a category that defines a potential security problem).
And it is for this reason that the JWs in Russia are best listening to the authorities rather than the WTS when it comes to changing their behavior - what the org tells them to do is what makes them behave like an extremist organization. Russia is a country that is training their citizens how to deal with potential terrorist threats. And they are really serious about it.
I have mentioned before that, in some aspects, the ban on the JWs in Russia can actually act to protect them. They should be underground right now - it is the safest place for them to be. Out on the streets and being publicly visible is not safe for people who behave like they do. It is their behavior that lands them in hot water. The JWs are organized and they behave like an extremist group whether they are one or not.
As much as we are shocked that this action goes against what we think of human rights, religious freedom, freedom of speech, etc., the acknowledgement that Russia's politics, geographical positioning, history and all of that, has bearing on the situation is, I think, critical. The best we can do right now is try to understand what is happening and why.
Personally, I think that the WTS is being incredibly naive and irresponsible with their reaction to this ban. They know very well that the way the JWs operate place them into a category of suspicious behavior. It isn't just that the WTS literature is suspect - it the way that the WTS operates that is suspect.
Terrorism on domestic soil in Russia is a very real threat - all the time, every day.
Anyone here remember the Beslan school siege? It was awful - it happened in 2004 and it was Chechen rebels who held over 1200 adults and children hostage. It was horrible - the whole thing unfolded terribly.
One of my Russian cousins wrote to me about it. From her email:
"The siege in Beslan is a great tragedy. Some of my relatives and friends
>were there and told terrible things. Nobody expected that so many children
>with their relatives would be dead. The 1. of September is a great holiday
>for children and their parents in Russia. It is the first schoolday.We all
>were shocked when we heard about the capture of hostages in Beslan. It is
>situated 200 km far from our region."
The Beslan School tragedy is just one of many events that have gone into the establishment of anti terror laws in Russia. Those laws have become very broad and are being implemented in severe ways against any organization that falls into what Russia has defined as 'extreme' and both violent and non-violent forms of extremism fall under Russia's new laws
So, yes, the JWs are going to be targeted in Russia. That is a given. And the WTS knows that. They have always known that. It is inevitable.
