RAID ON
BELIEVERS IN
CAPITAL OF KARACHAY-CHERKESSIA
43-year-old
Christian
pastor held in F.S.B. several days
Jehovah's
Witnesses
in Russia, 17 December 2019
On 16
December 2019
in Cherkessk, the F.S.B. conducted at least 9 searches in homes
of Jehovah's
Witnesses. A criminal case was opened against Albert Batchaev
based on part 1
of article 282.2 of the CC RF, for organizing "performance of
pieces from
a special songbook of the religious teachings of Jehovah's
Witnesses and
prayers to the God Jehovah" and similar actions.
The case
against the
believers was opened by the local F.S.B. The persecution of
believers was
conducted by an investigator of the F.S.B., Justice Major M.
Sapronov. At least
ten persons were detained for interrogation. Days later all
believers, with the
exception of Albert Batchaev, were released.
The
searches were
sanctioned by the Cherkessk city court. Neither the investigator
nor the
prosecutor appeared at the judicial hearing on conducting the
searches, which
did not prevent Judge Ruslan Ataev from subjecting his
compatriots, who are
guilty of nothing, to such a serious infringement of their
rights as searches.
(The peace-loving and law-abiding Jehovah's Witnesses have been
well known in
Karachay-Cherkessia for more than 50 years now, since after 1967
the believers
of this religion were resettled here in whole groups from
Siberian exile.)
The
F.S.B. maintains
that Albert Batchaev "exploiting his authority as a spiritual
leader of
adherents of the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses , . . .
settled issues
concerning resolving conflicts with adherents and he organized
group religious
services consisting of . . . . consistently performed singing
out of a special songbook
of the religious teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses and
prayers to the God
Jehovah." Although all such actions are guaranteed to every
person by the
Russian constitution ("the right to profess any religion"),
representatives of the law enforcement agencies—searching for
evidence of the
"struggle with extremism" and possible service
promotions—maintain
that the believers do not simply pray and sing songs but
continue the activity
of a forbidden organization. Attention has been paid to this
practice by
authoritative Russian international organizations, governments
and rights
advocates, including the Commissioner for Human Rights in the
RF, the Council
on Human Rights under the president of the RF, the president of
the RF,
prominent public figures of Russia, the Foreign Policy Service
of the European
Union, observers of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe, the
Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions of the United Nations, and
the office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The
government of Russia
has frequently declared that the decisions of Russian courts for
liquidating
and banning the organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses "do not
give an
assessment of the religious teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses and
do not contain
restriction or prohibition of confessing the aforementioned
teachings
individually."
Karachay-Cherkessia
has
now become the fiftieth Russian region where criminal cases
against
Jehovah's Witnesses have been opened. In Russia there are 85
regions in all,
including 22 republics, 9 territories, 46 oblasts, 3 cities of
federal
significance, 1 autonomous oblast, and 4 autonomous districts.
(tr. by PDS,
posted 17 December 2019)
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