BELGOROD JEHOVAH'S WITNESS NOT PUNISHED FOR
DISTRIBUTING BROCHURES WITH ADDRESS OF BANNED WEBSITE
Experts did not find anything illegal in
brochures that a Belgorod Jehovah's Witness was distributing.
We recall that religious literature was taken
away from a Jehovah's Witness who was witnessing on the street.
On a page of the brochure a web address of a site banned by the
Roskomnadzor agency was mentioned. On 27 February security
guards confiscated from a young man, who was standing near the
"Modnyi Bulvar" [Fashion Boulevard] shopping center, brochures
with references to the website of the Jehovah's Witnesses
religious organization. This website had been ruled by the
Supreme Court of the RF to be extremist, on 2 December 2014.
The religious literature was sent for expert
analysis. As the press service of the regional UMVD [Directorate
of the Ministry of Internal Affairs] explained, it was necessary
to wait for the results of the expert analysis for a rather long
time. In the end, the brochures were not found to be extremist
and a criminal case against the Belgorod Jehovist was not
brought. Why the literature in which the address of the
prohibited website was mentioned was not considered to be
illegal, the UMVD did not specify.
It should be noted that last year specialists of the Belgorod State Research University conducted an expert analysis, studying the contents of other brochures that local Jehovists were distributing. The experts concluded that the contents of the literature was intended to incite social strife on the basis of gender identity. Materials of a criminal case which was brought for this incident were sent for review in the October district court of the city of Belgorod. (tr. by PDS, posted 4 October 2015)
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