A US government commission has branded Russia one of the world's worst violators of religious rights, after a court order outlawing the Jehova's Witnesses as an “extremist organisation”.
“We need to send a clear message to Russia that we won't tolerate its continued campaign of attack and intimidation against freedom of religion", said Fr Thomas Reese, Jesuit chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). “We do not feel religious freedom is respected when a government decides who can be a religion and can't be.”
The priest was speaking at the Washington launch of the USCIRF's latest annual report, naming Russia on a list of 10 “countries of particular concern” for its religious rights record, alongside China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia.
The outlawing of the Witnesses, whose 395 local branches have faced regular police raids for handing out leaflets and door-to-door preaching, as well as assaults and acts of vandalism, was condemned by human rights groups and the European Union's External Action Service, which warned it would violate Russia’s international commitments by making “mere acts of worship” liable to criminal prosecution.
Meanwhile, the secretary-general of Russia’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference said his Church could not understand which Witness activities were deemed extremist. “Churches like ours don't recognise the Jehovah’s Witnesses as Christian, and don’t engage in dialogue with them - but we must distinguish theological issues from legal rights,” Mgr Igor Kovalevsky told The Tablet last week. “The situation in Russia is complex and difficult now - and there are very strong misgivings among Catholics that we too may be facing, if not persecution, then at least new acts of discrimination and limits on our freedom of belief.”
The Polish Church’s Catholic Information Agency said rights groups in Russia had accused the predominant Orthodox church of pressing for a ban on the movement, which is also to have all its properties and places of worship seized by the state.
PICTURE: Former Jehovah's Witnesses headquarters building with a Watchtower neon sign seen from Brooklyn in New York. Russia has declared Jehovah's Witnesses an extremist group and has banned the organisation from operating in Russian territory.
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