IN TRIAL OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES WASHINGTON POST SEES VIOLATION OF FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS CONFESSION
Despite the fact that the Russian constitution guarantees freedom of religious confession, an adherent of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Dennis Christensen, is threatened with ten years in prison for conducting a worship service for his fellow believers, the Washington Post writes. Russian authorities considered this activity to be illegal, inasmuch as the meeting was conducted after the Supreme Court ordered to find the association to be extremist.
The Washington Post viewed the trial of the Jehovah's Witnesses to be a violation of freedom of religious confession.
"Is it really a crime to honor God? Do the authorities have the right to impose their own answer?" the Washington Post poses the question. The publication advises those who "take freedom of religious confession seriously" to pay special attention to the trial of Dennis Christensen, which begins on 3 April in Orel.
The forty-six-year-old Dane has been held in custody for 11 months now. He is accused of organizing the activity of a congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses;* for this Christensen faces ten years in jail. In April 2017, when the Russian Supreme Court ruled this religious association to be "extremist," 395 local organizations were functioning on the territory of the country, which had in all about 170 thousand followers. The Ministry of Justice thinks that the work of the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses "creates a threat to the protection of the rights and interests of society and public security."
As the Washington Post emphasizes, Christensen appears to have "created a threat to public security" when he preached a sermon during a meeting of the Orel Jehovah's Witnesses on 25 May 2017. According to the representatives of the law, the accused "conducted the action of an organized nature, intended for the continuation of the illegal activity" of a religious organization that is prohibited in Russia: apparently he opened the building for the meeting and then the police descended, which they did in similar raids also in Kemerovo, Belgorod, and Taganrog.
The American newspaper maintains: "Actually the worship services of Jehovah's Witnesses are no more 'extremist' than those that are conducted in the Russian Orthodox Church, which has recently been closely tied to the authoritarian regime of President Vladimir Putin. However the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to grovel before the authorities; they reject military duty, they do not vote, and they consider God to be the only genuine leader." In the U.S.S.R., followers of this movement also were subjected to persecutions, the Washington Post adds.
In his recent message to the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin said that Russia should "expand the space of freedom" in all areas, "strengthen the institutions of democracy," and also "be a country that is open to the world, to new ideas and initiatives." In the opinion of the publication, if the president believed these words he would scale down the "unjustified judicial prosecution" to which Christensen and others have been subjected. He would explain to the courts that they should be guided by the 28th article of the constitution which declares: "Each person is guaranteed freedom of conscience and freedom of religious confession, including the right to profess individually or jointly with others any religion or not to profess any and to choose freely, to hold, and to disseminate religious and other convictions and to act in accordance with them."
*The Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia is a religious association that was ruled to be extremist and prohibited on the territory of Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the RF of 20 April 2017, appellate determination of the Appellate College of the Supreme Court of the RF of 17 July 2017).
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