Rights defenders plan to challenge at the Constitutional Court the law on extremism in the context of ban on Jehovah's Witnesses in Taganrog

As stated by the participants of the press conference convoked because of the address of Jehovah's Witnesses to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) after the prohibition of this religious community in the city of Taganrog, any persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia is inadmissible. The believers do not exclude an accelerated consideration of their complaint in Strasbourg, while human rights activists prepare their complaint on the law on extremism to the Constitutional Court.

On June 2, the Independent Press Centre located in Prechistenka in Moscow hosted a press conference on the topic with participation of Sergey Krivenko, a member of the board at the President of Russia for promoting civil society institutes and coordinator of the public initiative "Citizen and Army", Lev Levinson, an expert of the Institute of Human Rights, Vasily Kalin, Chairman of the Administrative Centre of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, and Alexei Nazarychev, and employee of the above Administrative Centre. This was emphasized in the Press Centre's statement.

The "Caucasian Knot" was informed by Grigori Martynov, an employee of the press service of the Administrative Centre of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Russian Federation that the conference that lasted for about an hour was attended by journalists and a representative of the Moscow GUVD (Chief Interior Department).

Levinson: believers are again repressed in Russia

Lev Levinson, an expert of the Institute of Human Rights, said that administrative arbitrariness dominates the observance of law in the work of state officials and bodies, the edition named "ReligioPolis" reports.

The human rights defender is worried that the persecuted religious organizations are accused of kindling inter-confessional hostility, religion-motivated humiliation of the honour and dignity, which, according to his story, looks strange not only from the legal but also from the moral viewpoint.

"Traditionally, any religious organization believes itself to be 'true', while all the others are 'astrays'; therefore, such 'extremism' is inherent in any religious community," the human rights activist is sure.

"The most unpleasant fact here is that Jehovah's Witnesses had been repressed, among other religions, in the Soviet time; and now these repressions come back. So far, however, only against Witnesses and several more religious movements," Mr Levinson has noted.

In his opinion, the believers' address to the ECtHR has quite a good prospect.

Krivenko: experts finish their complaint to the constitutional court

Sergey Krivenko, a member of the board at the President of Russia for promoting civil society institutes, supported Mr Levinson's position. Saying that any persecution of believers in Russia is inadmissible, he said that a respective statement was made this January by a number of well-known public and human rights organizations, which was supported by the above board at the President of the Russian Federation. "Among the signatories there are no Jehovah's Witnesses," he said, "but it was signed by the International Society "Memorial", engaged in defending the rights of repressed persons and sees to inadmissibility of persecuting those who suffered during the Soviet time and then received rehabilitation under the law."

The statement was considered at the sitting of the above board at the President of the Russian Federation. According to Mr Krivenko, the debates were hard, and not everyone and not at once supported the document. The board includes people with different religious beliefs; therefore, it was necessary to explain that the point was not in "supporting the religious movement of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia," but in supporting "the statement about inadmissibility of applying the law on extremism to them under various far-fetched pretexts."

As reported by Alexei Nazarychev, apart from legal methods of struggling against Jehovah's Witnesses, some regions of the Russian Federations use also illegal ones. He described the scheme of persecuting Jehovah's Witnesses as follows: "They first announce who the criminal is and then invent his crimes," the portal "Credo.ru" quotes him as saying.

"We see that Jehovah's Witnesses are suffering all over the country," said Vasily Kalin. "That it's unsafe to publicly profess one's faith and get together to discuss the Bible, as believers can be detained at any moment, interrogated and searched without any slightest grounds. And still we hope for fair considerations at the level of Russian courts, and we believe that in this situation just "some mistakes were made."

Lawyers of Jehovah's Witnesses hope for accelerated consideration of their complaint by the ECtHR

As reported to the "Caucasian Knot" by lawyer Arli Chimirov, who is representing the interests of Jehovah's Witnesses at the ECtHR on several cases, "the complaint to the ECtHR is mainly on the issue of principle - whether Jehovah's Witnesses are an extremist organization, and whether their dogmas and practice known in the world for more than hundred years are subject to protection by the European Convention."

Lawyer Chimirov has explained that a usual procedure at the ECtHR may take some 5-6 years, because the resources of the court are limited, while the number of complaints from Russia is huge. "However, since the ECtHR system is under reform, there is hope that the consideration will go much quicker, say, within two years," he said.

He has added that this complaint to the ECtHR is already the fourth one submitted not in the private order, but on behalf of associations of Jehovah's Witnesses of Russia.