JEHOVAH AND THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE
Believers will go off into the underground. The Chepetsk prosecutor's office is preparing documents for the court in order to obtain a ban on the activity of the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in the city. The police told about this at a recent session of the city duma.
Oleg Luchinin, the chief of the police department: "Work that was conducted in the past year jointly with the FSB and the prosecutor's office has permitted us to identify the leaders and active participants of the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses who engaged in distribution of forbidden extremist literature. Administrative reports have been drawn up with respect to the leader of this organization and administrative penalties have been imposed in the form of fines.
We have described previously the unsuccessful attempts of the organization to challenge in court the actions of the prosecutor's office and warnings that were issued. The prosecutor's office will try to put an end to the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses in Kirovo-Chepetsk through the court, appealing to systematic incidents of the distribution of forbidden literature.
On this issue, Chepetsk is not a pioneer.
Within the borders
of the country a number of branches of the organization have been
liquidated
and some people have been held criminally accountable. We note
that the
Jehovah's Witnesses is one of the largest religious organizations
in the world;
in Russia alone it counts 400 branches. (tr. by PDS, posted 30
January 2017)
Background articles:
Jehovah's
Witness leader loses appeal of conviction for extremism
May 10, 2016
Internet
link to Jehovah's Witnesses' website considered extremist
activity
January 12, 2017
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