Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday issued a ruling banning Jehovah’s Witnesses after the Justice Ministry called on it to dissolve the “extremist organisation”.

Supreme Court judge Yury Ivanenko said Russia had decided to close down “the administrative centre of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the local organisations in its fold and turn their property over to the Russian Federation.”

The decision comes after the Ministry said it had found signs of “extremist activity” within the organisation and requested that it be banned.

The group, which has 395 centres across Russia, has vowed to appeal the decision.

“I’m shocked,” Yaroslav Sivulsky, who represents the group’s administrative centre, told reporters.

“I didn’t expect that this could be possible in modern Russia, where the Constitution guarantees freedom of religious practice.”

Russia’s Jehovah Witnesses have had several run-ins with law enforcement in recent years.

In January, the chairman of the group’s branch in the town of Dzerzhinsk was fined for having distributed material that authorities deem extremist, local media reported.