TWO JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CONVICTED IN KARACHAY-CHERKESSIA ON CHARGE OF DISTRIBUTING EXTREMIST LITERATURE
A city court in Cherkessk found Jehovah's Witnesses Andrei Volikov and Dmitry Metelin guilty of distributing extremist literature. They were fined 1,000 rubles each. Representatives of the religious organization deny that they distributed literature recognized as extremist.
Earlier, on 17 March 2015, a Cherkessk city court considered the case of administrative violation of law defined by article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Violations of Law of RF with respect to the religious organization and two of its members, Andrei Volikov and Dmitry Metelin. The religious organization was fined 50,000 rubles and its members 1,000 rubles each. In addition, the literature, which is included in the federal list of extremist materials, was confiscated.
On 9 April, the religious organization and two members of the congregation filed an appeal in the Supreme Court of Karachay-Cherkessia, which on 30 April left the decision in the administrative case with respect to the organization unchanged, but the case against Volkikov and Metelin was returned to the city court for a new review, the press secretary of the Supreme Court of Karachaevo-Cherkesia, Janna Lafisheva, told Kavkazskii Uzel.
"Extremist literature was discovered during an inspection of the residences of members of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization. Among the literature that was distributed by members of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization of the city of Cherkessk were books that are included in the published federal list of extremist materials. For example, such publications as 'How to develop close relations with God,' 'What one should know about God and his purpose,' 'In what may people hope,' and others," she said. A second decision of the city court of Cherkessk was issued on 14 March [sic May?], she explained.
The leader of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization of Cherkessk, Ruslan Kanamatov, refused to comment on the judicial decision.
"The literature of Jehovah's Witnesses was included in the federal list of extremist materials as the result of judicial mistakes, in our opinion. Both we and legal scholars and experts consider that this literature is not extremist. We hope that sooner or later these judicial mistakes will be corrected and this literature will be removed from the federal list of extremist materials," Ivan Belenko, a representative of the press service of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, told Kavkazskii Uzel.
He noted that members of the organization comply with judicial decisions, even if they do not agree with them, and they do not bring literature included in the list of extremist materials into their houses of worship, including into the Kingdom Hall (as Jehovah's Witnesses call their houses of worship—note by Kavkazskii Uzel) of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Cherkessk.
"Our fellow believers from Cherkessk do not doubt that the literature found in the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Cherkessk really had been planted and there are weighty grounds for thinking that. The court did not take into consideration the arguments of our fellow believers, who called the court's attention to this. We very much regret that this decision was issued. Most likely, we will appeal it at higher instances," Belenko added. (tr. by PDS, posted 17 May 2015)
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