Liturgical building of Jehovah's Witnesses set on fire in Labinsk

Bottles with Molotov cocktail were thrown into the building for liturgical sermons of Jehovah's Witnesses, located in the city of Labinsk, Krasnodar Territory. The building caught fire; the door and some window frames were knocked out by the blast. Fortunately, there were no human casualties.

The news item about the arson of the building, committed at night on November 25, was released today by the press service of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. It is reported that on the night of the incident Sergey Vinokurov, a member of a religious community of Jehovah's Witnesses, came into the building and together with a husband of one of the believers could suppress the fire.

"We - believers - did not hurt and harm anyone. It is a pity that people express their negative feelings in this way," Sergey Vinokurov expressed the feelings of his fellow-believers.

The militiamen who arrived at the scene of the explosion found remains of four bottles with combustible mixture inside the building. The damage caused to the building made, according to the report circulated by the press service of the Jehovah's Witnesses, over 69,000 roubles.

The report notes that this is not the Russia's only case of attacks on prayer houses of Jehovah's Witnesses in November 2010. Vandals have also damaged the Kingdom Halls (the name Jehovah's Witnesses call their worship buildings, - note of the editor) in Lipetsk and in the village of Chunskiy, Irkutsk Region. The total material damage from three cases of vandalism exceeds 160,000 roubles.