SEIZURE OF FOREIGN PROPERTY BY RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES
Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, 25 April 2018
On 7 December 2017, an unprecedented decision was issued in the Sestroretsk district court of St. Petersburg: to seize from a foreign organization a large complex of immovable property in St. Petersburg, ruling a 17-year-old transaction to be invalid.
"We are talking about 14 buildings of 33,000 square meters area," Yaroslav Sivulsky of the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses explains. "They are located on ten hectares of beautiful, well kept territory in the village of Solnechnoe in the Kurortny district of St. Petersburg. And back in 2000 this complex was transferred to the ownership of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania."
In the course of a four-hour court session, exhaustive evidence was presented confirming the legality of the transfer of the complex to a foreign owner.
Attorney Viktor Shipilov explained: "For example, in the 2000s, in 2007, issues of the transfer of property to the ownership of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania were carefully checked and no violations were found on the part of agencies of the prosecutor's office and no claims were presented."
"The Watchtower Society had to pay taxes, although the Administrative Center as a religious organization, registered in accordance with Russian legislation, was exempt from paying taxes on real estate and immovable property," Attorney Artur Leontiev explained. "In all these years the society was required to pay a rather large sum in taxes into the budget of the Russian Federation. This sum was on the order of three million dollars. It is clear that nobody would want to pay such money while concluding an imaginary transaction purely for show or on paper."
It is noteworthy that the Watchtower Society was not admitted to participation in the hearings in the Russian Supreme Court in April 2017. At the time, the Supreme Court refused to involve the society in the case, justifying this by the fact that the interests of said organization were not affected in any way.
Artur Leontiev: "If one speaks in simple language, this situation may be compared with a case where I, let's say, am the owner of an apartment in which my relative lives and some law enforcement structures present claims against this relative on far-fetched bases, perhaps, and they say that he violated something. Representatives of the state come to me and say 'Surrender the apartment.' I say: 'Why?' 'Well because your relative, in our opinion, violated the law.' I say: 'Excuse me. I did not violate the law and no claims were presented to me. Why do you want to seize my property?' But nevertheless they say: 'Yes, we want to take it.'"
It should be noted that the Russian Federation did not finance the construction of the complex. An abandoned pioneer camp, located on this territory, was acquired on commercial bases by Jehovah's Witnesses from a Russian enterprise.
Yaroslav Sivulsky: "This complex was built on resources of foreign religious organizations and exclusively by the efforts of believers themselves. So there is nothing illogical in the fact that these buildings were subsequently donated to the Watchtower Society, at whose request the construction was carried out."
Alexander Blokhin recalls: "We saw with what enthusiasm and with dedication, with desire and joy, fellow believers from many countries participated in this. They arrived with trailers and lived there, in these trailers. That is, people went to real sacrifices. Today, seeing what was built with such love and such sacrifice and dedication simply being taken away like that. Well it is simply humanly very sad and painful." His wife, Olga, shares the feelings: "It seems that they have torn out a part of your heart, because the smells and plants and everything that was there, it's as if all of this by your own hands, and many souls invested themselves in this."
We recall that something similar happened in Russia once, namely 100 years ago, in 1918. At the time, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars all property of the Russian Orthodox Church was taken away. The decision of the Sestroretsk district court does not have anything similar in the history of contemporary Russia.
Mikhail Sitnikov, journalist: "If one goes by normal human reasoning, then this is robbery. Essentially such violence is the other side of the same violence that was shown in discrimination against religious confession and believers, expressed in insults when they burst in during services. It is now expressed in the attempt to take away everything down to the last stitch."
Gerkhard Bezie, religion scholar: "Such a step amazes me, since this harms the image of Russia in certain circles. In my opinion, there is nothing beneficial to Russia in this. We should not give up the attempt to show to the public what is happening and to reach out especially to thinking people throughout the world."
Roman Lunkin, religion scholar: "I think that the time will come when the Russian government will have to do the same kind of partial restitution of religious property as has happened since 2010 with respect to the Russian Orthodox Church, and certainly the state sooner or later will have to return to the principles of religious liberty, and that means to return to the Jehovah's Witnesses what is now being confiscated."
"If the case were considered purely in accordance with law, then we suppose that the decision of the Sestroretsk district court must be reversed and the prosecutor's lawsuit must be rejected," Attorney Artur Leontiev thinks. "If any other conditions prevail, well then we will continue the appeal further."
"All of the property that may be seized, the Jehovah's Witnesses have dedicated to Jehovah God," Yaroslav Sivulsky says. "Therefore we believe that it belongs to God and is being taken from God. But the Bible teaches us to lay all our concerns upon him." (tr. by PDS, posted 26 April 2018)
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