THE
POLICE SHOWED UP AT A TENT CITY ON THE OB SEA
They
suspected that it was Jehovah’s Witnesses
by
Anna Bogdanova
A
check-up was made in a tent city on the shores of the Ob Sea.
The police and
government officials suspect that the adepts of Jehovah’s
Witnesses, a group
which has been declared a dangerous sect in Russia, have
settled in on the
shore under the guise of ordinary visitors.
“A
task force of our interdepartmental commission drove out there
along with the
Department of Internal Affairs. Under the authority of the
Department of
Internal Affairs we checked people’s identification,” said vice
governor of
Novosibirsk Province Aleksandr Titkov. “For now it is difficult
to say whether
they are Jehovah’s Witnesses or not. But, they are [some kind]
of believers.”
He
described how on the shore the task force found a tent camp,
which looked like
an ordinary collection of recreational campers. “Really, this is
a group of parents
of a particular confession that have come to the forest around
the Novosibirsk
Reservoir and set up a tent camp as a way for their children and
families to
spend time,” explained the vice governor. "Today we are looking
into the
circumstances. If we determine that spending time in this way
poses a threat to
the lives and health of the children, then it is possible that
we will decide
to get everybody out of this tent camp.”
The
vice governor did not specify why exactly the authorities were
concerned or how
they had found out about the camp.
Last
year there was a religious scandal in Berdsk. In one of the
schools there,
someone slipped Valentine cards with the message “Jesus loves
you with all his
heart” into the pockets of children.
Note:
Jehovah’s Witnesses are an international religious organization.
In 2017 the
Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declared the activities
of the
Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and all
395 of its regional
divisions to be extremist and banned them in Russia. (tr. by
DSC, posted 21
July 2017)
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