“We've already started to receive reports in some places that meetings were disrupted. They take personal data, like copies of personal identity, of who was there. And after that, they let them go, but they want to know who attends those meetings.”
Source/Credit: Newsweek / Yahoo
By Jason Le Miere | April 25, 2017
“We expect that the police will be very active to interrupt meetings”
Russian authorities have already begun breaking up Jehovah’s Witnesses services and collecting members’ identities following a Supreme Court decision to uphold a ban on the religious organization, a spokesman for the faith said Tuesday.
Backing a charge from Russia’s justice ministry that Jehovah’s Witnesses’ activity put it in violation of the country’s anti-extremism law, the Supreme Court Thursday ordered all 395 of the religious group's local chapters to be seized and its activities outlawed. The faith, which comprises 175,000 members in Russia and has been active in the country since 1991, has yet to receive the written decision from the court, which it needs in order to launch an appeal, something which it has said it will do.
In the meantime, the group's bank accounts in Russia have already been frozen and most kingdom halls, where members gather for services and prayer, have ceased activity. Where local chapters have remained operating, an intimidatory police presence is being felt, said spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, Yaroslav Sivulskiy.
“We expect that the police will be very active to interrupt meetings,” he told Newsweek Tuesday. “We've already started to receive reports in some places that meetings were disrupted. They take personal data, like copies of personal identity, of who was there. And after that, they let them go, but they want to know who attends those meetings.”
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Read original post here: Russia: After Ban, Police Harasse Jehovah’s Witnesses During Religious Services
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