IN CRIMEA, FORBIDDEN MATERIALS AGAIN PLANTED ON JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES AND WORSHIP INTERRUPTED
Personnel of law enforcement agencies numbering 10 persons appeared on 2 July at a worship service of Jehovah's Witnesses in Alushta (Crimea), where about 100 believers were in attendance. Mikhail Didun, an aide of the city prosecutor, approached the platform and interrupted the service, announcing this on the microphone, and after this he deliberately, in view of all believers, "seized" from a stranger, who had arrived for the service, a black package. In the package several brochures were seen, which had allegedly been entered into the List of Extremist Materials of the Russian Ministry of Justice.
Believers declared emphatically to law enforcement agents their protests against such illegal actions. This was not the first time that Crimean law enforcement agents have used such a tactic which, on one hand, is evidence of the absence of genuine violations on the part of believers, and on the other of the intense desire to represent the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses as illegal by any means, the press service of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia notes.
The disruption of the worship service in and of itself, the more so in the use of government office, is an extraordinary incident and constitutes a crime, provided for by article 248 of the Russian Criminal Code. (tr. by PDS, posted 4 July 2016)
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