Hi Diogenesister:
What he cares about is encroachment by foreign corporations who will not put Russian interests first?
Interesting. So to stop the foreign encroachment, he declared his federation's 175,000 Russian citizens as extremist. If he is wary of foreign corporations, why did he allow the transfer of the Russian branch property to Watchtower in US in 2000? and why did Russia keep collecting property tax from that property to the tune of USD 3 million and not know what the property is used for?
and increase flow of Russian money out of Russia.
transferring money abroad doesn't constitute a legitimate legal justification, even partial, for unlawful and harsh persecution of JW Russian citizens who voluntarily donated the money. Under which law was this illegal? and if illegal, has Russia sought that money back?
Watchtower is oncesuch foreign, American run corporation. One that dupes poor Russians into sending their hard earned cash to a billion dollar corporation.
So Putin believed that WT was duping his citizens. So the solution was to harass and imprison those same poor citizens - who belonged to an organization that Russia itself legally registered in 1992 and re-registered in 1999 under their religious laws.
He may be reviewing the treatment of Russian Jehovahs witnesses since caring folk have tipped him the nod that it's the Russian victims of this cult that are suffering, not the cult itself.
What is that supposed to mean? When the supreme court declared the JW's organisation as extremist, who were declared as extremists? - it was not the Watchtower society of Pennsylvania. It was the Russian JW's. How do you ban a cult and no expect its members to suffer? The treatment that individual JW's are getting was sanctioned by the Supreme court.