RUSSIAN JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES LAUNCH HASHTAG IN SOCIAL NETWORKS BECAUSE OF THREAT OF BANNING THEIR ACTIVITY IN THE COUNTRY
Portal-Credo.ru, 25 March 2017
Late in March Russian Jehovah's Witnesses began a campaign for promoting on the Internet the hashtag #StopJWBan in order to attract attention to the threat of a ban on their confession. Thanks to the action, in just one day almost 20 thousand persons viewed on YouTube a video appeal of Vasily Kalin, the director of the Administrative Center of their confession, a Portal-Credo.ru correspondent reports.
"They don't let us defend ourself in courts and they do not admit us to major news media. Only the Internet remains," the campaign on the website, stopjwban.blogspot.com, says.
The action is actively connected to believers beyond the boundaries of the country. Twitter users from various countries have published on the aforementioned hashtag photographs of their own letters to Russian authorities, the American president, the United Nations, and other international organizations.
The hearing in the Supreme Court of the RF on the lawsuit of the justice ministry is scheduled for 5 April, which requests declaring the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses to be "extremist" and liquidating it. (tr. by PDS, posted 26 March 2017)
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