"Jehovah's Witnesses" to a much greater extent than any other religious minorities have been in the sights of the Russian secret services. Does Trump oppose renewed religious repression in Russia?

bruceq · May 6, 2017

http://inosmi.ru/politic/20170506/239300344.html

POLICY

Review, National , United States

Does Trump oppose renewed religious repression in Russia?

06/05/2017

42 5171

Elizabeth Clark (Elizabeth Clark)

The Russian Supreme Court has recognized the religious organization "Jehovah's Witnesses" illegal, resulting in 170,000 people are prisoners of conscience.

April 20 The Supreme Court has banned the pacifist religious organization "Jehovah's Witnesses", recognizing it as "extremist". More than 170,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia are no longer able to meet together, without fear of imprisonment, and all the property of this religious organization will be confiscated. In fact, Russia has recognized illegal the whole religion. President Trump has to raise the question about the ban on discussion with Putin and take in respect of the ban other diplomatic steps.

This event was the culmination of several years for those who differed low level of repression by the authorities with financial audits, tossing evidence of failure of worship and prosecution of local organizations. A ban of this religious denomination throughout the country brings to mind the extent of religious persecution in Stalinist times, when Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious organizations, mass planted in cattle cars and deported to Siberia.

This prohibition is based on the law of 2002, which allows for a broad interpretation, and under the guise of "extremism" prohibits that in other countries it is considered a classic of freedom of speech - the promotion of "exclusivity, superiority or inferiority" of citizens because of their attitude to religion. In 2015, the UN Human Rights Committee has criticized the wording, calling it "vague and broad," and noted that "the law is increasingly being used to restrict freedom of expression, including political dissent and religious freedom."

The law on extremism, developed after the events of 11 September in response to the attacks on the state of believers with violence 'has come full cycle "and has changed diametrically opposite way - now it allows the state to attack the religious group, has not committed any of nonviolent action.

How did we get to this? During the years of Vladimir Putin's rule, religious discrimination and persecution intensified. He unceremoniously uses religion for the sake of its policy of nationalism since 2000, when the government adopted a policy document on national security, which includes a chapter on "Security in the field of spiritual life." There's a word, warning that the representatives of the "Foreign sectarian communities, such as the" Jehovah's Witnesses "... using religious cover, ... form a branched control structure through which collected socio-political, economic, military, and other information about what is happening in Russia, citizens are ideologically processing and incite separatist sentiments. "

This kind of paranoia and religious discrimination touched (though to a lesser extent) and members of other religious minorities, "is not a traditional Russian" - Baptists, Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, Pentecostals, and Orthodox "schismatics." Caught in their number and some Muslim groups, including followers of the late Turkish Islamic Bogoslova Saida Nursi (Said Nursi).

Russia has even started a major international scandal with India in 2012, when the court figured out whether to ban the book "Bhagavad Gita As It Is» (The Bhagavad-Gita As It Is), the sacred text, esteemed representatives of the "Krishna Consciousness" International Organization, as an extremist. However, after the law became applied to the Bible and quotes from the Koran, the Russian authorities to take immediate amendment banning extremist recognize scriptures "traditional" Russian religions - Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism.

"Jehovah's Witnesses" to a much greater extent than any other religious minorities have been in the sights of the Russian secret services, even in Soviet times. During the Second World War, the number of Jehovah's Witnesses was at least two thousand in the Soviet Union, but the rapid growth of the number of post-war paranoia caused by the KGB - the secret service bother impact and spread of this organization. In 2000 he published a book by Christopher Andrew (Christopher Andrew) and Vasili Mitrokhin "Shield and Sword: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB» (The Sword and the Shield, 2000) - the fascinating story of how the secret dissident who worked in the archive of the KGB, for 12 years, I did an extract of the most valuable secret documents and secretly hated them from the archive building. The authors note that "obsession with Jehovah's Witnesses KGB leadership was perhaps the most striking example of their lack of a sense of proportion in relation to the most minor dissent."

The same thing is happening today. However, Washington is idle. It's been two weeks, but the only response was "extreme concern" that expressed the acting State Department spokesman in an e-mail the information to the American online edition of US News & World Report. Contrast this with the reaction of the independent US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which sharply condemned the ban, calling it "politicized attacks on the religious group", or the reaction of Angela Merkel (Angela Merkel), which states clearly Putin. Not wanting to personally speak about the most violent phase of the post-Soviet religious persecution, Trump President and Vice-President of Pence provide food for suspicion of their links with Russia and cause frustration for those who appreciate the freedom of religion and speech. Trump can demonstrate that he owes nothing to Russia - it need only have the name of "Jehovah's Witnesses" at the same pressure, which he used to secure the release of humanitarian fund Aya Hijazi worker (Aya Hijazi).

Ban endangers the "freedom of the individual in the Russian Federation as a whole," the joint statement said the UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. The fact that Russia "uses the law on countering extremism, in order to restrict the freedom of ... with regard to the fact that the state is allowed to ... marked a bleak future for the whole of religious freedom in Russia." By introducing the ban, said in his closing statement the lawyer, "Jehovah's Witnesses", "the country has successfully acquiring 170 thousand prisoners of conscience."

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