Russian Supreme Court bans Jehovah’s Witnesses branch

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13:45 09/06/2016

MOSCOW, June 9 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) – Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses of Belgorod as extremist organization, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

In February 2016, the Belgorod Regional Court has granted a lawsuit lodged by prosecutors seeking liquidation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses branch. The organization appealed the ruling. The Supreme Court thus upheld the lower court’s decision.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have had many legal problems in Russia.

In March 2015, a court in Tyumen fined the organization 50,000 rubles ($773) and seized prohibited literature.

In January 2014, a court in Kurgan ruled to ban the organization’s booklets as extremist. The books talk about how to have a happy life, what you can hope for, how to develop good relations with God and what you should know about God and its meaning.

In late December 2013, the leader of the sect’s group in Tobolsk, Siberia was charged with extremism and the prevention of a blood transfusion that nearly led to the death of a female member of the group.

In 2004, a court in Moscow dissolved and banned a Jehovah’s Witnesses group on charges of recruiting children, encouraging believers to break from their families, inciting suicide and preventing believers from accepting medical assistance.

Jehovah's Witnesses is an international religious organization based in Brooklyn, New York.