BAN OF BIBLE IN JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES' TRANSLATION APPEALED
SOVA Center for News and Analysis, 22 September 2017
The Jehovah's Witnesses have sent to the Leningrad provincial court an appeal of the decision recognizing the Sacred Scripture in the New World Translation to be extremist material.
On 21 September 2017, four Jehovah's Witnesses organizations (Religious Society of Jehovah's Witnesses, Finland; Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Pennsylvania; Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, New York; and Legal Corporation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany, Berlin) sent to the Leningrad provincial court an appeal of the decision of the Vyborg city court of 17 August 2017 recognizing as extremist the publications "Sacred Scripture. New World Translation" (2015) and also the brochures "The Bible and its Main Theme," "Science instead of the Bible?" and "How to Improve Health. 5 Simple Rules."
In the appeal, the Jehovah's Witnesses point out that in making the decision regarding the ban of the Bible in the Jehovah's Witnesses' translation and three brochures the court relied on the expert conclusion of the "Center of Socio-Cultural Expert Analysis," composed under the leadership of mathematics teacher Natalia Kriukova, who does not have the necessary qualifications. Meanwhile, the Jehovah's Witnesses presented to the Vyborg city court the conclusions of authoritative linguists and religious studies scholars, who refuted Kriukova's conclusions as without foundation and directly mistaken. The court of the first instance did not take these conclusions into account and now the provincial court will be able to become acquainted with them inasmuch as they are included in the appeal.
We have written here in detail about the decision of the Vyborg city court and the incompetent expert conclusion, which lay at its base.
We consider that recognizing as extremist both the Bible in the Jehovah's Witnesses' translation and also their other publications is incorrect and we regard such bans as a manifestation of religious discrimination. The attempt undertaken in this case by the prosecutor's office and the court to get around the law that forbids recognizing sacred scriptures of world religions to be extremist is its own kind of sad precedent, which opens in the future the possibility of also banning other translations and renderings of sacred books.
We recall that on 20 April 2017, the Russian Supreme Court ruled that the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia and 395 local societies were extremist. The decision has entered into force. (tr. by PDS, posted 22 September 2017)
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