bruceq

ALSO SEE THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ABOUT THIS HERE: http://articles.latimes.com/2001/feb/24/news/mn-29749
FROM 2001
THE RUSSIAN "EXTREMISM" LAWS WERE "DESIGNED" SPECIFICALLY TO TARGET AND ELIMINATE "JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES: 
EVIDENCE:
Extremism laws[edit]
The 2002 Law on Extremism, amended in July 2006, can affect religious groups, particularly Muslim groups, by criminalizing a broad spectrum of activities. For example, Mansur Shangareev was convicted of extremism and sentenced to 2 years in prison for "actively adhering to a radical trend of Islam" that claimed superiority over mainstream Islam, and for making "remarks to Muslim girls about their immodest dress," among other things.
The 2006 amendments allow some charges of extremism where people are alleged to have defended or expressed sympathy with other individuals already charged with extremism.
Laws against extremism have been tightened over time. The 2016 Yarovaya Law, named after politician Irina Yarovaya, extends the legal restrictions against extremism to include evangelism by minority faiths.[4][5][6][7]
On May 5, 2015, customs authorities in Russia seized a shipment of religious literature containing Ossetian-language Bibles published by Jehovah's Witnesses. Russian customs officials in the city of Vyborg held up a shipment of 2,013 Russian-language copies of Bibles on July 13, 2015. Customs authorities confiscated three of the Bibles, sent them to an "expert" to study the Bibles to determine whether they contained "extremist" language, and impounded the rest of the shipment.[8]
On July 21, 2015, the Russian Federation Ministry of Justice added Jehovah's Witnesses' official website to the Federal List of Extremist Materials thereby making it a criminal offense to promote the website from within the country and requiring internet providers throughout Russia to block access to the site.[9][10]
On March 23, 2017, the Russian News Agency TASS reported, "Russia's Justice Ministry has suspended the activities of the religious organization calling itself Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia due to its extremist activities."[11] The Supreme Court of Russia is scheduled on April 5 to hear a request by the Russian Justice Ministry to declare Jehovah's Witnesses an extremist organization. If adopted, the ruling would ban the organization's activity across Russia and result in seizure of their property.[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_Russia

EVEN BEFORE THE 1997 ANTI-CULT GROUP I HAVE INVESTIGATED THAT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC POPE HIMSELF AND ARCH-BISHOP KIRILL OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF RUSSIA JOINED FORCES TO BEGIN THE ELIMINATION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES DURING THE BREAK-UP OF THE SOVIET UNION !!!
The Archbishop Cannot Cope!
   LAST year, a consistory (solemn council of cardinals) was organized to discuss certain matters that are of great concern to the Catholic Church. One of these, according to the newspaper Il Sabato, is “the aggressiveness of the sects.” However, the newspaper said: “It should be no problem for the cardinals to reach agreement on this point. All are in accord that there is a need for a more in-depth study of the phenomenon of new religious movements and also a need to prevent, as far as possible, their expansion.”
Evidently, though, “the aggressiveness of the sects” is not just a problem in Italy. Il Sabato reports: “While visiting the Vatican recently, Archbishop Kirill of Smolensk [one of Russia’s oldest cities] . . . asked the pope for ecumenical aid in coping with the overwhelming growth of Jehovah’s Witnesses and similar groups in the Soviet Union.”

   In the first century, leaders of established religion had similar complaints when Christianity was spread aggressively by its adherents. On one occasion indignant Jews complained to the city rulers: “These men that have overturned the inhabited earth are present here also”! (Acts 17:6) Back then, religious leaders tried hard to stop the spread of Christianity, but they failed. Today also, any effort to stop the spread of true Christian doctrine is doomed to failure. God himself promises: “Any weapon whatever that will be formed against you will have no success, and any tongue at all that will rise up against you in the judgment you will condemn. This is the hereditary possession of the servants of Jehovah, and their righteousness is from me.”—Isaiah 54:17. SOURCE : 8/15/1992 WATCHTOWER
IN 1998 THIS ANTI-CULT GROUP TOOK JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES TO COURT IN RUSSIA  BUT LOST THE CASE.
HERE IS EVIDENCE FROM 1997 ABOUT THIS GROUP:
"Dangerous" sects named
VICTIMS OF SECTS
Argumenty i fakty, 
4 December 1997
Question: I read somewhere that there is some committee for rescuing youth from false religions. From which specific religious organizations and by what means does this committee "save" our youth? Z. Fomicheva, Ekaterinburg
Answer: The Committee for Rescuing Youth from False Religions was created by persons who had suffered one way or another from totalitarian sects. In comprises both relatives of young people who have fallen under the influence of destructive cults and sectarians themselves. Former sectarians, of course. The committee actively participated in the development of the State Duma's new law on freedom of conscience.
Each member of the committee "specializes" in a particular religious organization and provides advice and counsel regarding it. The victims of destructive cults principally need psychological help, but we still do not have this mechanism in place. Incidentally in the USA such organizations have operated for twenty years already, like the American Family Fund and the Network for Information about Cults. Their work includes counseling and psychological rehabilitation of sectarians.
The Committee for Rescuing Youth considers that the most dangerous sects operating on Russian territory include "Unification Church" (the official name is the Association of the Holy Spirit for Unification of World Christiaity), "Church of Scientology," "Jehovah's Witnesses," "Church of Christ," "International Society of Krishna Consciousness," "Aum Shinrikyo," "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Mormons), "Church of the Final Covenant" (Vissarion), "Mother of God Center," and "The Family" (also known as Children of God). It is also possible to mention "Union of Independent Christian Missionary Societiet," "White Brotherhood," "Witness Li," and "The Spiritual Center of Satora." (tr. by PDS)
http://www2.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/9712a.html
MOSCOW COURT VINDICATES JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES AFTER YEARS OF PERSECUTION; 
Effort to outlaw the group is dismissed. Action called a victory for religious freedom.
by Robyn Dixon 
Los Angeles Times, 24 February 2001
Earlier generations of Yaroslav Sivulsky's family were persecuted as Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union, and then the state still sought to ban the group as a dangerous cult--even in democratic Russia.
Finally, in what was called an important victory for religious freedom in Russia, Sivulsky saw justice done Friday when a Moscow court threw out a case that sought to outlaw the group in the capital.
In 1998, an anti-cult group called the Committee to Save Our Youth pushed for action against the Jehovah's Witnesses. Prosecutors in Moscow's northern district launched the case in early 1999 based on Russia's controversial 1997 law on religion, designed to limit the activities of foreign religious organizations.
For Sivulsky, the case was a flashback to the repressive Stalin regime 50 years ago when his parents, grandparents and thousands of other Jehovah's Witness families were exiled to Siberia. His father got seven years in a labor camp, he said.
"The accusations were basically the same," he said Friday. "The accusation was that their religion ran counter to the ideology of the Communist Party."
Sivulsky, 33, was jailed for 18 months in 1987 for refusing to serve in the Soviet army. Believers do not accept blood transfusions, refuse to salute any national flag or do military service.
"In court in 1987 , I refused the services of a lawyer because the lawyer, the prosecution and the judge all played on the same team against me," he said.
Prosecutors in 1999 took action to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses under an article in the religion law aimed at cults, which can be outlawed for splitting families, inciting religious discord, encouraging suicide or denying medical care to the critically ill.
"Today's decision sends a very important and optimistic message to other religions and confessions trying to practice in Russia," said Sivulsky, who is spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.
"Russian society is not prepared to go back to totalitarian thinking," he said. "It is impossible to prohibit freedom of religion, freedom of association and freedom to speak to people, which is basically what the prosecution was demanding."
Human rights groups welcomed Friday's decision but cautioned that harassment of many religious groups by bureaucrats and police remains common in Russia.
Advocates of religious freedom feared that a successful prosecution against the Jehovah's Witnesses would have opened the gates to similar actions against many other religious groups struggling to operate in Russia.
The court called in five experts to examine the literature of the Jehovah's Witnesses before the judge dismissed the prosecutor's case for the ban.
"It's a very important test case. It sets the standards for how much evidence you have to produce to ban a group like this," said Diederik Lohman, director of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch. "The fact that all the literature had to be examined by experts sets a precedent for the way cases like this are to be dealt with."
The Jehovah's Witnesses group was founded in the late 19th century in the U.S. and appeared in Russia several years later. It now claims to have 250,000 followers here.
Galina Krylova, a lawyer for the group, said the Moscow case was based on absurdities.
She cited a "stupid accusation that my clients don't celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas--but Muslims or Jews don't celebrate it either."
Russian Orthodox Deacon Andrei Kurayev, professor of theology at St. Tikhon's Institute and Moscow State University, insisted that it was clear that the Jehovah's Witnesses are "a totalitarian sect" that must be resisted strongly by the Orthodox Church's anti-missionary program.
"This sect tries to control people's consciousness," he charged. "They very strictly limit all the information that their followers get. Thus, they are a threat not only for the state but for individuals as well."
But he said he feels that it is up to the Orthodox Church to struggle against such groups.
"We should work hard and struggle for people's souls rather than wait for courts to ban them," he said.
The Russian Orthodox Church, which bitterly opposes missionary activities, was one of the main proponents of the 1997 religion law, which forced many denominations to go through a difficult registration process. The only ones excused were those defined as "traditional" to Russia: Russian Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism.
http://www2.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/0102f.html
EVIDENCE IS HERE THAT THE ANTI-CULT GROUP WERE INVOLVED IN THE VERY LAWS THAT ARE NOW USED TO CURTAIL AND NOW BAN JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES. OF COURSE THIS WILL BE A "PRECEDENT" AGAINST ALL RELIGIOUS GROUPS AS THE STATE DUMA JUST SAID YESTERDAY !!!

He will not fear bad news.+נ [Nun]His heart is steadfast, trusting in Jehovah.+ס [Samekh] 8  His heart is unshakable;* he is not afraid;+ע [Ayin]In the end he will look in triumph on his adversaries.+ PSALM 112:7,8

Wave of violence against Jehovah's Witnesses
INTERVIEW: WITH YAROSLAV SIVULSKY, MEMBER OF GOVERNING BODY OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN RUSSIA
Portal-Credo.Ru, 21 April 2017
 
--Portal-Credo.Ru: What are the very first practical consequences of the decision of the Supreme Court of the RF regarding your liquidation?
 
--Yaroslav Sivulsky: One can say with certainty that we will not be able to conduct our big events—district and regional congresses, which we conduct three times a year, because our activity will not only be suspended but it is prohibited according to the court. In essence, this part of the decision is taking effect immediately. And if our houses of worship are confiscated, then regular meetings of congregations, which are conducted weekly, also will be impossible. Most likely, only one option remains—that is to meet in private homes of fellow believers. But this is a serious restriction of freedom.
 
--Have any excesses arisen in the wake of yesterday's decision and the "informational campaign" to arouse hostility toward Jehovah's Witnesses in the news media that accompanies it?
 
--Today we learned that our Hall of Congresses in St. Petersburg was stoned, glass was broken, and serious physical damage was caused. From the regions we are receiving reports that some of our houses of worship have already been sealed. For example, in Crimea just yesterday police came to the house of worship, interrupted a meeting, and sealed the building. But these are only the starters; all this will come to fruition and around the country a wave of violence against Jehovah's Witnesses is rising.
 
--How is the Administrative Center now functioning?
 
--In essence, it ceased its usual activity: bank accounts are frozen, and work is not being conducted any longer in the offices. We are following the court's decision and we cannot do anything else for now.
 
--Will you continue evangelistic work in Russia, and if so, in what forms?
 
--We call this activity witnessing. Our fellow believers witness about what is written in the Bible, and it seems to me now this should be the personal decision of each of our fellow believers in the country, how they will act in the future. They should take account of certain consequences that participation in religious activity may entail, but practice will show that no decision of courts will be able to restrain a Christian from performing the task which Jesus Christ or God commanded of acquainting other people with God's standards, with his intentions, and with his personality. Most likely, this activity will continue. Perhaps in a somewhat less explicit form.
 
--The status of the Jehovah's Witnesses was equated in the Russian federation to the Islamic State . . .
 
--Actually, the boundary between real and virtual extremism has been washed away. Many times such statements of our defenders have been voiced in the Supreme Court: Jehovah's Witnesses are accused of virtual or literal extremism. It is clear that Jehovah's Witnesses are not any kind of extremists; they are very far from this. On the contrary, they proclaim respect for people and love. Jesus said: "By this they will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another," and not hatred. Jehovah's Witnesses treat people of other faiths and other nations with respect. If you come to an international congress of the Jehovah's Witnesses, you will see the greatest diversity of skin color and the greatest diversity of nationalities—and they all hug each other and get along amicably.
 
--Is it true that on the eve of this court decision you made some attempts to rearrange the property belonging to Jehovah's Witnesses organizations in order to save it from confiscation?
 
--Some small attempts were made. But it seems that this was blocked. However before the court's decision takes effect there is still a lot of time, but all operations with our immovable property are suspended so that we have no chances for rewriting or rearranging anything.
 
--That means that for you there is already nowhere to return to your workplace?
 
--Essentially, yes. 

Implications of the Supreme Court's decision
175,000 PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE
by Anton Chivchalov
Radio Liberty, 25 April 2017
 
On 20 April, Hitler's birthday, Russia became the first European country to prohibit the religious confession of Jehovah's Witnesses. Hitler also tried to do this, but did not succeed. A bit later Stalin tried, with similar results. According to the decision of the Supreme Court, for the first time since 1918 in Russia the property of a whole religious confession with countrywide reach will be confiscated, and this is hundreds of buildings, built on the voluntary contributions of believers themselves. The confiscation is an important point of the plaintiff's declaration of the Ministry of Justice. People do not request money from the government and they build houses of worship at their own expense, but the government confiscates them because it does not like how they pray.
 
The cynicism of the situation simply cannot be comprehended. Back before the decision of the court, the police and FSB throughout the country conducted raids on houses of worship, searched believers, copied their passports, photographed them, and issued warnings about their criminal responsibility for "extremist" activity. I stress again: this began before the court's decision. Now that it has been announced, throughout the country hunting season has been declared.
 
Police, the FSB, as well as an infinite number of vandals and goons of all stripes, all are out on the hunt for believers, women, children, and babas [elderly women]. In Cheliabinsk the police have already dispersed a meeting of deaf persons. In Taganrog believers have already received criminal sentences for reading the Bible. Vandals have already broken windows and even tossed grenades into houses of worship. All of this has already happened, and all of this now will be multiplied.
 
We stand on the brink of a widespread religious genocide with unpredictable consequences. "The siege has now begun, since the confession has been 'liquidated,' but Jehovah's Witnesses will not renounce the faith," lawyer Anatoly Pchelintsev notes justifiably. Really, it is impossible to ban faith with the stroke of the pen. As a result the country simply has gained 175 thousand prisoners of conscience. In Pchelintsev's opinion, some will emigrate and some will go underground. Those who will not be able to do either will be imprisoned.
 
It is amazing, but the majority of journalists and practically 100% of the public do not understand the reasons for this trial nor its consequences. The situation is understood thus: a) the Jehovah's Witnesses are a dangerous sect that commits actions that are dangerous to society; b) when they are banned, they will cease to do these actions.
 
"It is the end of the world for Jehovah's Witnesses," RT writes naively. In reality the situation is as follows: a) the only basis for banning Jehovah's Witnesses is their "extremist," that is the incorrect, literature. Nothing concerning any other harmful acts has been discussed in court, except for questions of blood transfusion, but even on this issue the Ministry of Justice was not able to provide any evidence.
 
The only basis for a ban is the disputable, in the plaintiff's opinion, wording in the literature and biblical interpretation. "It is not quotations from the Bible that are considered extremist but the interpretation of what is written in the Bible," the justice ministry's lawyer, Svetlana Borisova, declared frankly in court.
 
Further: b) after the ban, in the future believers will believe just as they believed earlier. History does not know cases when Jehovah's Witnesses changed their convictions on order of the authorities. If someone thinks that with the aid of the ban believers can be "re-educated," remade to order, this is an extremely naïve prediction. It does not work.
 
The only thing that will change as the result of the court's decision: it is necessary to imprison people. And it is necessary to imprison not a rock group of three persons and not a single Pokemon hunter, but almost 200 thousand citizens of the country. It is an incredible number of people who no single civilized state has imprisoned in modern history. It will be necessary to build new prisons and a whole network of prisons. But in any case, a whole new page in the history of state-confessional relations is beginning.
 
Attorney Viktor Zhenkov told in court a morality tale: "In this courtroom there is a person who was born in prison. Because his mama, who was in the third month of pregnancy, was sentenced as an enemy of the people to eight years incarceration simply because she was a Jehovah's Witness. She gave birth in prison and the infant spent two years in the prison's children's home. His father could not take him because he had been exiled to Siberia. In 1991 the government acknowledged that the mother was a victim of political repressions, apologized to her, and assigned a pension. And now here in the court this man, born in prison, approached me and asked: 'Does the Ministry of Justice really want a repetition of this horrible history?' And I did not know what to answer. Even now I do not know what is motivating the representatives of the Ministry of Justice and those who are directing this trial."
 
Today several people continue to say: there will not be any imprisonments; simply a legal entity is being banned; personal rights remain with the citizens. This is a misconception deriving from bad information. Already warnings have begun for believers simply for reading the Bible and prayers in their own home (!) under threat of criminal prosecution. The FSB has already begun warning that all adherents of Jehovah's Witnesses will be prosecuted on criminal articles. Earlier in Taganrog, 16 believers already received criminal articles for simply reading the Bible, and not all of them were members of the banned legal entities. The Ministry of Justice itself frankly acknowledged at the hearings that criminal cases may be initiated against believers. Religious discrimination (forbidden by the constitution) has been officially introduced into Russia: believers of some religions may assemble for prayer, and others may not.
 
It is encouraging that ever more believers of other confessions understand that tomorrow they will come for them. Baptists, Pentecostals, and even Orthodox have spoken out openly in defense of Jehovah's Witnesses, and they have sent their appeals to the president. For many, their eyes have been opened to what is happening. It is necessary to open them faster; it may not make it.
 
Immediately after the decision of the Supreme Court there began to be discussed in the corridors of power which religion will be next. "All organizations who exist in our country, with the exception of traditional confessions, should be examined to find protection of the interests of traditional morality, traditional values of Russia, in institutions of respect for the family, concern for neighbors, and love of the fatherland. In my view, very many organizations today do not accord with this criterion," said the chairman of the State Duma Committee for Development of Civil Society and Affairs of Public and Religious Associations, Sergei Gavrilov.
 
Has everyone gotten the signal?
(tr. by PDS, posted 26 April 2017)

Fortunately there are ways of being anonymous on social media i'm sure the friends in Russia are "cautious as serpents but innocent as doves". 

Interesting question. Of course legally it does not effect any who don't live in Russia. 

https://openrussia.org/notes/708958/
Ekaterinburg officials announced a competition to identify the extremists on the basis of profiles in social networks. Artist of the state order will receive no more than 450 thousand rubles, reports "New Day".
The work should take place in two stages: analysis of blogs and social networks, then the - field research. Under the second phase of City Hall customers involve conducting a survey, 50 interviews, and the formation of focus groups of 100 people. The result of the work will be dvuhsotstranichny report analyzing the characteristics of social networks and the users in the sample should be at least 3,000 people.
At the final stage of the report will be dealt with some experts, they also deliver a report and presentation for the customer - the mayoralty of Ekaterinburg. Anticipated next steps with the received data is not yet known.
The application of City Hall stated that the purpose of the complex work to identify "extremists" is the study of timing, and information resource site for the "extremist" information contrary to the current Russian legislation.

The future for Jehovah's Witnesses
WITHOUT WITNESSES: HOW WILL JEHOVISTS LIVE AFTER THE BAN IN RUSSIA?
"Telegraf" found out what adherents of the Jehovah's Witnesses and experts think with regard to the ban of their activity in Russia
by Dmitry Matveev
Telegraf, 28 April 2017
 
On 20 April, the Russian Supreme Court found the activity of the "Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia" to be extremist and banned its work. Not long before that, the Russian Ministry of Justice put a stop to the work of the central office of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization because of rulings that 95 of the books the organization distributes are extremist. Telegraf talked with adherents of the organization in Russia and abroad and found out how their life will change after the ban.
 
Nobody compels people to become Jehovah's Witnesses by force; they come to the faith by themselves. Anton Chivchalov, an adherent of the Jehovah's Witnesses, described for Telegraf how he became acquainted with this teaching quite by accident back when he was a teenager and found their literature in the home of his grandmother. "It was in Ukraine, Lvov province, the city of Chervonograd. I was immediately attracted by the logic and reasonableness of the presentation. All this contrasted sharply with the perception of religion that I had before that: something gloomy, confused, mixed with strange rituals, 'for old ladies,' and so forth," Anton explained.
 
He wrote a letter to the Jehovah's Witnesses' affiliate in Germany and requested literature, which he quickly received. Anton said that for some time he corresponded with believers from another city and then he began to study the Bible more seriously and to attend meetings, first in Ukraine and later in Russia. In 1996 he himself received baptism as a follower of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
 
Originally he was attracted by the reasonableness, clarity, logic, and integrity in its teaching. "Before this, my religion was associated with stupidities like holy water which my grandmother fed me (incidentally, later she also became a Jehovah's Witness). But I unexpectedly discovered for myself that the Bible gives absolutely reasonable answers to important questions and formulates an integral and logical picture of the world. For example, before that I did not find anywhere a more logical explanation for the nature of evil than in the Bible," Anton Chivchalov explained.
 
He added that if one speaks about Jehovah's Witnesses as people, then he sees among them genuine Christian qualities. "These are brotherly love, mutual help, a serious attitude to the study of the Bible, treating it as a handbook and guide for all areas of life, and zeal in the work of evangelism. All of this is today in great deficit among other Christian churches," Anton explained.
 
The follower of Jehovah's Witnesses said that in his family people are sufficiently educated to be able to respect the religious convictions of other people. "My grandmother and my younger brother also became Jehovah's Witnesses and my mother is now actively interested in the faith," he explained.
 
"Jehovah's Witnesses will submit an appeal of the decision of the Supreme Court, including in the European Court for Human Rights, and therefore not everything is so unambiguous. "If there is an unfavorable outcome for us, we will not be able to conduct large worship services and we will not be able to use the houses of worship that we built, nor to import literature. Of course, in a law-based state in the 21st century, freedom of religious confession should not look like that," Anton considers.
 
At the same time, he thinks that the matter will not come to mass imprisonments, but it may come to mass fines, warnings from prosecutors, acts of vandalism, dismissals from work, confiscations, humiliations in law enforcement agencies and insults. "Unfortunately all this has already begun, even before the decision of the Supreme Court. Here much will depend on the position of specific officials in places," Anton Chivchalov explained. He said that our government thinks that law enforcement agencies should hunt for defenseless women with Bibles and not catch criminals.
 
Anton explained that he has no fear. "We try to remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: 'They persecuted me and they will persecute you also.' Each person, coming to Christian faith, should be psychologically prepared for persecution. And Jehovah's Witnesses do not entertain historical experience; after all we went through much more severe soviet and hitlerian repressions," Anton explained.
 
"What do I feel? I feel great responsibility to do all that I can in order to help my brothers and sisters in Russia, to sanctify God's name and establish his kingdom. This is the main thing that we do in whatever country we live in and in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. This is what always unites us as a world brotherhood," the follower of Jehovah's Witnesses summed up.
 
The ban of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia shocked the world community. Sergei Afanasiev, an adherent of Jehovah's Witnesses living in Ukraine, said that the ban of the organization in Russia was a shocking experience for the whole world. Jehovah's Witnesses are known as peaceful citizens, who do not participate in political activity and categorically oppose violence. This means that the Jehovah's Witnesses do not have a political lobby and they are neutral and submit to any government. And it is for this reason that our situation in a country is a marker of religious liberty. Usually persecutions in authoritarian countries begin with Jehovah's Witnesses, but they never end with them," Sergei said.
 
As regards citizens of Ukraine, the ban of Jehovah's Witnesses evoked diverse reactions. "Even those people who categorically disagree with the views of Jehovah's Witnesses condemned this ban and sympathize with Jehovah's Witnesses. Such people are the majority," Sergei explained.
 
He said that it is still unknown when and which actions the government will take against Jehovah's Witnesses. "What is already now is they are sealing up buildings and believers who gather in their own homes for reading and discussing the Bible are issued prosecutorial warnings. That is, my fellow believers can expect very difficult times," he explained.
 
Sergei does not think that the authorities will immediately start criminal prosecution of believers with real criminal sentences. For now public opinion or the reaction of the world community will not permit doing this. "However it is not necessary to imprison; Jehovah's Witnesses who wind up in the list of extremists will be deprived of work, the right to business activity, and the right to have bank accounts and to get credit. This is quite enough in order to turn peaceful and honest citizens into outcasts," he says.
 
Jehovah's Witnesses are law-abiding and they respect authority, whatever it is and however they are treated. Sergei Afanasiev says that followers of the teaching will not organize pickets or protest demonstrations. They will not be saboteurs, spies, terrorists, or pests. They will continue to be peaceful and honest people, and the only opposition will consist in their continuing to believe, gather together, fellowship, and speak about their faith with others.
 
He said that if Jehovah's Witnesses are imprisoned, they will be model prisoners. "This is known from historical experience. In nazi camps, Jehovah's Witnesses accepted the rules of camp order as the law of the state and they obeyed them very precisely, but without violating their own principles. The Jehovah's Witness Elza Abt, a prisoner of Auschwitz, wrote in her memoirs that during the evacuation of the camp in January 1945, she and other women Jehovah's Witnesses were put on an ordinary passenger train. The convoy allowed them to occupy seats in various cars and practically did not guard them. They did not know the locality and they accidentally missed the station where they were supposed to transfer to another train. If they had escaped, nobody would look for them. But Elza and several of her fellow believers turned themselves in to the first SS they met and were put into the right camp. If they had acted differently, it would have placed the lives of hundreds of their fellow believers at risk," Sergei Afanasiev said.
 
He added that all Jehovah's Witnesses' property is supposed to be confiscated. But the Kingdom Halls that the Jehovah's Witnesses use have various forms of ownership and some of them belong to foreign legal entities. That is, confiscating immovable property will not be as simple as the Ministry of Justice suggests. Practically all the buildings that the Jehovah's Witnesses use were built by the adherents themselves and wth their donations. "In light of this, confiscation of the property of religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses will possibly seem even more savage and blasphemous than the confiscation of property from the Orthodox Church after 1917," Sergei Afanasiev summed up.
 
The ban of the Jehovah's Witnesses was a purely political decision, and the Russian Orthodox Church had nothing to do with it. "As regards possible pressure on the political authorities on the part of the RPTs, the dominant religious tradition in the country, which has a ramified structure, with the aim of eliminating competitors and changing the general cultural and world view field, and the public space and information field is saturated with these speculations. I think that they all are far from the truth, and on the "political" level everything is not so far," Viliam Shmidt, a professor of the Russian Academy of State Service and a religious studies scholar, explained for Telegraf.
 
The expert said that adherents of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia are not as many as adherents of religiosity that is untraditional for Russia on the whole. "For the RPTs it would be more desirable if such small, untraditional religions did not have the status of 'religious,' but this is impossible, the religious studies scholar explained.
 
In the event of a ban, Jehovah's Witnesses will go underground. "What is expected from the Jehovah's Witnesses after the ban? A rather strange question. What can one expect from 'fundamentalist' pacifists? They will live as before, to be sure now without the right of public associations. A large portion of them will find themselves in a compulsory shadow, in 'the religious underground,' as it was in the soviet period, when religious traditions were fought as public worldview vestiges. In the 21st century, fighting with ideas, not of a social and political order but of a metaphysical one, at the state level, is unfortunately extremely vulgar political views and practices," Viliam Shmidt concluded.  (tr. by PDS, posted 1 May 2017)

Metropolitan makes a confused response to ban of Jehovah's Witnesses
ORTHODOX LEADER ASKS THAT IT BE BELIEVED THAT RPTsMP DID NOT PARTICIPATE IN BAN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN RUSSIA
Portal-Credo.Ru, 1 May 2017
 
The chairman of the Department for External Church Relations (OVTsS) of the Moscow patriarchate, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Ilarion, gave assurances that the decision of the Supreme Court of the RF to find the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses to be "extremist," was "carried out independently" and without consulting with the Russian Orthodox Church (RPTS) of the Moscow patriarchate, TASS reported on 29 April. The metropolitan did not explain what sources he used in passing judgment of the degree of the independence of the current Russian Supreme Court.
 
"I would like to emphasize that the church did not take any kind of part here and they did not turn to us for consultations. The church does not urge that heretics, sectarians, or dissidents be subjected to criminal prosecution," Ilarion said.
 
Nevertheless, the decision to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses is a "positive step in the business of combating the spread of sectarian ideas that have nothing in common with Christianity," the chairman of the OVTsSMP thinks, causing some confusion in his position on this case.
 
"The fact that sectarians will remain and will continue their activity is hard to doubt. But the fact that, at least, they will cease to equate themselves to Christian confessions openly is for the better," the hierarch declared.
 
He also noted that the "activity of Jehovah's Witnesses violates civil legislation," without explaining just how it does. (tr. by PDS, posted 1 May 2017)

Yes my parents and grandparents on both sides of my family went through that time as well. My parents died just last year 88 years old baptized 75 years ago. They had many stories to tell.

Russia’s ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses prompts religious hate crimes
When Russia’s Supreme Court condemned the religion as ‘extremist,’ some took it as permission to attack believers, like a sad page from U.S. history.
Share on Facebook     Are you an influencer?  2 Religious hate crimes have begun against Jehovah's Witnesses in Saint Petersburg. Photo: Max Pixel/freegreatpicture.com, used with permission. The #Supreme Court of the Russian Federation’s ruling on Thursday, April 20 to criminalize and officially ban Jehovah’s Witnesses has already moved supposedly good Russian citizens to commit religious #hate crimes. The very evening of the ruling, a group of men who took the ruling as permission to attack, accosted the largest building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses for worship in Saint Petersburg, located on Kolomyazhsky Prospekt. They blocked vehicles from leaving the premises. One of the men shouted insults and threats of physical harm to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The group then hurled numerous baseball- and brick-size rocks at the building, shattering and smashing glass doors and windows. And they say Jehovah’s Witnesses are Russia’s ‘extremists.’
          Violence predicted
Before the April 20 hearing ended, Attorney Maxim Novakov, representing the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses, said this would happen. Groundlessly label people as dangerous criminals, and the Court’s ruling could provoke a wave of violence against non-violent Christians. He even specified that such violence would take the forms of property damage and attacks on Witnesses themselves, clearly motivated by religious hatred.
Won’t ever happen here?
Well, sadly, it already has happened in the U.S. After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, at the height of World War II, government officials rounded up over 100,000 Japanese-Americans—more than 60,000 U.S. citizens, born and raised in the U.S.; more than 50,000 were children—and herded them off to concentration camps in 10 states.
True, the preferred term is Internment Camps, but the prisoners may not have such kind words for it. Nearly 2,000 died for medical reasons alone, most having contracted illnesses in the camps due to unsanitary or overcrowded conditions.
 
 
 
Domestic terrorism
If the Civil Rights movement has clarified anything, it is this: What white supremacists call simply taking the law into their own hands, many African Americans call “acts of terrorism,” pure and simple. These are ones who survived or who descend from survivors of over 5,000 lynchings of black men, women and even children during the early 20th century, domestic terrorist attacks by Americans. Sure, Hitler’s Nazi Germany was first to attack Jehovah’s Witnesses, in the 1930s, whom they criminalized as enemies of the nation.
Why? For their respectful neutrality in silently refraining from saluting the flag and giving the Nazi salute, Heil Hitler!, which means ‘Salvation by Hitler.’ Yet other nations, including these United States of America, soon followed suit.
Shameful facts
On November 4, 1935, Jehovah’s Witness children in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, who stood respectfully but silently refrained from saluting the flag, received lashings in a school’s boiler room. Two days later, the school of Minersville, Pennsylvania, expelled William and Lillian Gobitas for the same motive, though they too had always respectfully stood during the ceremony. Their parents filed legal action, which by 1940 reached the U.S. Supreme Court. An eight-to-one judgment—no doubt swayed by war hysteria—overruled the trial and appellate courts’ decisions, and ruled instead that respectfully standing without participating was insufficient; flag salute was mandatory in public schools. The result? A wave of violence directed at thousands of Christians swept through the nation. The attacks increased despite First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s public appeals denouncing the atrocities.
Shocking atrocities
What sort of hate crimes did patriotic Americans commit against their fellow citizens whose beliefs differed from theirs? Everywhere imaginable—on the streets, at their workplaces, even when showing up for their doorstep visits—people who took the law into their own hands held an American flag before Witnesses and demanded that they salute it “or else.” A partial list of the religiously motivated hate crimes committed and documented in public records follows.
Crimes against humanity
mob attacks beatings kidnapping threats of lynching beatings to the point of unconsciousness tarring and feathering castration and mutilation jailing, often without charges solitary confinement hundreds of ‘preventive detentions’ denying contact with friends, family members and attorneys night shootings looting of homes arson attacks to homes, automobiles and places of worship driven from towns, counties and even states forced to swallow castor oil mockery and insults public shaming (ripping their clothes off) public burning of Bibles and religious publications physical assaults against them and their attorneys in courtrooms The law turns a blind eye
During many attacks, law enforcement officials stood idly by, doing nothing to interfere with the crimes being committed before their very eyes, sometimes contributing to the violence or even instigating mob action themselves. In just five years (1940-1944), so-called upstanding American citizens committed more than 2,500 of such violent hate crimes against their fellow citizens, known worldwide for their peacefulness and respectful neutrality. That’s more than one a day, every day of every week of every month, for five years.
View image on Twitter         Recent rumbles
Admirably, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed itself on the flag salute issue on Flag Day (June 14), 1943, declaring it unlawful for officials to dictate what people should believe or confess by action or faith. Mandatory flag salute was forbidden. The Court’s written opinion said that it was the first time the nation’s highest judiciary had rescinded prior decisions so as now to restrict the scope and reach of democratic government. In all, Jehovah’s Witnesses won nearly 50 Supreme Court cases during the 20th century—strengthening the rights of all American citizens—several of them specifically flag salute issues. Despite these landmark rulings, a few very-forgetful Presidential candidates in the 1980s and 1990s successively whipped up patriotic fervor, campaigning to reinstate mandatory flag salute.
Imitate Russia, anyone?
Russia may be thousands of miles away geographically. But the same issues presently arising there have long been close to U.S. citizens’ hearts and part of this nation’s disappointing history. In the thick of war hysteria or even simple xenophobia, which is on the rise everywhere, it takes very little for good, kind people to suddenly turn on other good people, simply because someone points and says: “Enemy!” Russia’s ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses can easily worsen, the government gaining a foothold to outlaw every religion that it doesn’t favor. Other nations could copycat Big Bully’s repressive actions. So citizens of all nations do well to worry lest something similar should happen overnight in their own backyard.

Roman Catholic leader raises concern that his people may be treated like Jehovah's Witnesses
GENERAL SECRETARY OF CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS OF RUSSIA CRITIZES BAN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
SKGNews.com [Free Catholic Newspaper], 2 May 2017
 
The Catholic church of Russia condemned the decision of the Supreme Court banning the Jehovah's Witnesses and it warned that this step increases the worries relative to new restrictions with respect to Catholics' rights.
 
"Churches such as ours do not regard Jehovah's Witnesses to be Christian and we do not engage in dialogue with them, but we must distinguish theological problems from legal rights," declared the general secretary of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Russia, Monsignor Igor Kovalevsky.
 
"The situation in Russia now is complex and difficult. Catholics have very strong worries that we also may be faced, if not with persecution then at least with new manifestations of discrimination and restrictions of our freedom of religious confession," he said.
 
By the decision of the Supreme Court of 20 April, Jehovah's Witnesses were called an "extremist organization" and sentenced to confiscation of the property belonging to this organization throughout the country.
 
As Msgr. Kovalevsky reported to a correspondent of the news agency "Catholic News Service," it is not clear to the Catholic church which actions may be considered "extremist," adding that all religious groups have the right "to exist and to develop in the Russian federation," if they do not violate the law. "The law should be fairly applied to all . . . . A law may be severe, but it is the law as before. I think that the government is obliged to give to everyone a clear explanation about why this group was liquidated," Msgr. Kovalevsky said.
 
The Jehovah's Witnesses were registered in Russia in 1991 and reregistered in 1999, but they have been subjected to regular arrests and police raids for passing out leaflets and witnessing "from door to door." Their members have been subjected to attack and their property has been damaged by vandals.
 
A ruling of the Supreme Court established fines of up to 10,700 USA dollars and up to 10 years incarceration for anyone who will be involved in the activity of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
 
Msgr. Kovalevsky said that although there are no signs that the Catholic church will be treated as the Jehovah's Witnesses were, "the government should assure citizens that freedom of conscience remains intact."
 
"Jehovah's Witnesses have the same right to protect their dignity and faith as do other citizens," he said. "Although protecting human rights is not our main task, the Catholic church defends the right of each person to freedom of conscience." (tr. by PDS, posted 2 May 2017)

Pro-Orthodox news agency clarifies church's opposition to Jehovah's Witnesses
CHURCH SUPPORTS BAN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN RUSSIA
Interfax-Religiia, 2 May 2017
 
The Russian Church called Jehovah's Witnesses a dangerous sect and supported its ban in the Russian federation.
 
"This is a sect that is both totalitarian and harmful. I know about this well because I have had the opportunity of frequently talking with former devotees of this sect," the head of the synod's Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Ilarion, declared on the program "Church and World" on the Rossiia-24 television channel.
 
He sees the danger of the Jehovists in that they approach people on the streets with their literature, present themselves as a Christian organization, while their activity is built "on the manipulation of the mind and they destroy the psyche of people and the family."
 
In addition, the hierarch noted, adherents of Jehovah's Witnesses "distort the teaching of Christ and interpret the New Testament incorrectly."
 
"Their doctrine contains a multitude of false teachings. They do not believe in Jesus Christ as God and Savior, they do not acknowledge the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and therefore they cannot in any way be called Christian," he declared.
 
As was reported, on 20 April the Russian Supreme Court found the Russian Jehovah's Witnesses to be an extremist organization. Thereby an administrative lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice was granted.
 
The metropolitan welcomed this decision of the court, expressing the opinion that now the "pernicious and harmful" influence of Jehovists will diminish. He also added that the church did not take any part in this case and it was not approached for consultations.
 
The Jehovah's Witnesses organization has regularly been the object of attention of oversight agencies in all regions of Russia and in a number of regions its activity has been banned.
 
Earlier the Russian Supreme Court acknowledged as legal the decision for the liquidation of territorial divisions of Jehovists in Orel, Stary Oskol and Belgorod, Abinsk of Krasnodar territory, Samara, Birobidzhan, and other cities. Local divisions of the organization have often been held administratively accountable for distributing extremist materials—in Tiuimen, Abinsk, Samara, Saransk, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Gelendzhik, and other cities. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 May 2017)

Compare previous report: 
Metropolitan makes a confused response to ban of Jehovah's Witnesses
May 1, 2017

Informant's report leads to fine of Jehovah's Witness
LEADER OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CONGREGATION IN KYZYL FINED FOR CONDUCTING MEETING
SOVA Center for News and Analysis, 3 May 2017
 
The head of a local religious organization was punished for conducting a meeting after the suspension of its activity.
 
On 3 May 2017, the MVD for the republic of Tuva reported that on 19 April 2017, a magistrate judge of court district No. 2 of Kyzyl found the leader of a local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses guilty of committing an administrative violation of law, provided for by part 1 of article 20.28 of the Code of Administrative Violations of Law (organizing the activity of a religious association with respect to which a decision has been made to suspend its activity). He was fined 1,000 rubles.
 
The ministry reports that on 5 April a telephone report came into the dispatch center of the city directorate of the MVD, which said that on Churgui-oola St. in Kyzyl "people are meeting and discussing religious topics and also are discussing the topic of the possible end of the world." Personnel of law enforcement agencies established that the premises belong to the local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses of the city of Kyzyl.
 
The activity of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses and the rights of local religious organizations that are members of its structure were suspended by the Russian Ministry of Justice on 15 March 2017 in connection with the submission of a lawsuit for its liquidation in the Supreme Court. Later, on 20 April, this lawsuit was granted.
 
From our point of view, the liquidation of Jehovah's Witnesses organizations for extremism, prosecution of their members, and prohibition of their texts do not have legal grounds and are a clear manifestation of religious discrimination. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 May 2017)

Hope you feel better soon and thanks to all.

Thank you very much

Why are you bashing me? The heading says "fake news" which I changed a few minutes after I posted it to inform people of the truth. Are we not all brothers and sisters here. Well most of us. Anyway please show love for it is the perfect bond of union.
Fine I will go elsewhere since there are many apostates here anyway and we are not suppose to associate with them. Goodbye

Well my first indication was that the link was not acting right as I could not even copy and paste almost as if it did not exist on the net. I also noticed NO other news site was reporting this then I checked with #stopjwban and a few others and some were mentioning that this might be fake. Then I put checked the website itself on scam advisor and found out it is not even originating in the U.S. which fox news is located and it mentioned a very good possibility that it is from Ghana in Africa and it was fake.
   Regarding Kushner it is interesting that he bought about 80% of the Brooklyn properties over the past few years and now is living at the White House. So Trump his father-in-law certainly knows about Jehovah's Witnesses but probably cares less about their plight in Russia as The King of the South has other things on his agenda.
 

Yes originally I did post it that way and thought it was from Fox news in the U.S. but within about 10 min after posting I realized something was wrong with the link for it and after more investigation discovered it was fake. Therefore in order not to have anyone report that "World News Media" is reporting "fake news" and give us a bad rep I decided to change the heading to read as it does now. Sorry for any misunderstandings and I will try and check sources better next time but I am not perfect. Bruce

YES . Anything Trump says is reported by the major news outlets and nothing has been said but as noted above it is not real news but someone trying to stir something up. Propaganda often is used in warfare and Satan is at war with us [he can appear as an angel of light]  but don't worry. Happy is the man who fears Jehovah........He will not fear bad news. His heart is steadfast, trusting in Jehovah.   His heart is unshakable; he is not afraid; In the end he will look in triumph on his adversaries.  Ps 112 :1; 7-8.
Interestingly the King of Assyria also used propaganda as mentioned in todays broadcast at JW Broadcast and we can expect more during the Great Tribulation : https://tv.jw.org/#en/video/VODProgramsEvents/pub-jwb_201704_11_VIDEO

This site is very strange

others seem to be saying this is fake also

It is fox24 news USA news but something is funny about it. I cannot copy and paste anything and links work starnge.
it is also directly contradicting the Moscow Times article...I wouod avoid this site as no one else is reporting what they are claiming

I don't know trying to find out
This same site also said appeal was rejected but others say opposite...also not getting any news about this from CNN or others