JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES FILE SUPERVISORY APPEAL AGAINST DECISION OF SUPREME COURT BANNING THEIR ACTIVITY
SOVA Center for News and Analysis, 12 September 2017
The Jehovah's Witnesses filed a supervisory appeal against the decision of the Supreme Court banning their activity in Russia. In the appeal they ask for a total annulment of the decision of the Supreme Court of 20 April 2017.
On 11 September 2017, lawyers for the Jehovah's Witnesses filed a supervisory appeal against the decision of the Supreme Court banning the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. They ask for a complete annulment of the decision of the Supreme Court of 20 April 2017 and for suspending its execution until the end of proceedings in the court of supervisory instance.
"In considering the ordinary activity of the Jehovah's Witnesses for worshiping God and for disseminating their religious convictions as instances of extremist activity, the decision [of the Supreme Court] and the appellate determination [of the Supreme Court] violate the uniformity in interpretation and application by courts of the norms of law," the text says.
"The decision and the appellate determination deprived all persons living on the territory of the Russian federation of the possibility of worshiping the God Jehovah in buildings designated for this purpose and they created substantial difficulties for people who profess the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses to profess independently the religion they choose in collective forms and to share their religious convictions, and other citizens were deprived of the opportunity to get information about the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses in order to adopt these religious convictions and to live in accordance with them in the future. Thereby the judicial decisions being appealed violate the rights and legal interests of an indeterminate circle of persons. In effect, they are an act of politically motivated prosecution of persons professing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses and thereby they violate the public interests of Russian democratic society for ensuring religious pluralism and protection of the rights and liberties of man and citizen," the plaintiffs conclude.
The appeal must be scheduled for review by the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Court within three months.
We recall that from the point of view of the SOVA center, the liquidation of the organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses for extremism and the prosecution of members of their congregations and bans of their texts do not have legal bases and are a clear manifestation of religious discrimination. (tr. by PDS, posted 13 September 2017)
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